Into what boundless life does education admit us. Every truth gained through it expands a moment of time into illimitable being—positively enlarges our existence, and endows us with qualities which time cannot weaken or destroy.

Learning adds to your life in a way nothing is subtracted from. What you understand widens what you are able to notice, and a thing once genuinely grasped stays available in every year that follows, which is a strange and generous arrangement compared with almost anything else you can acquire. An hour spent understanding something does not vanish the way an hour spent on most things does. It quietly enlarges what the rest of your hours can contain.

Choose one thing you have been curious about and give it real attention rather than passing contact. Depth is where this effect comes from. Skimming twenty subjects does not do it.