Storytelling

“We must beware of a certain craze of collecting which sometimes takes possession of those who make notes.  They want to have a full
notebook or  filling cabinet; they are in a hurry to put something in
the empty spaces, and they accumulate passages as other people  ll
stamp and postcard albums.  at is a deplorable practice; it is a sort
of childishness, and risks becoming a mania. Order is necessity, but it
must serve us, not we it. To indulge obstinately in accumulating and
completing is to turn one’s mind away from producing and even from
learning; excessive attention to classi cation interferes with use; now
everything must be subordinated to the good of the work.”

 (Sertillanges. The intellectual life: Its spirit, conditions, methods. 1960. p. 194)

“Strepsiades: Tell me, O Socrates, I beseech you, by Jupiter,
who are these that have uttered this grand song? Are
they some heroines?

Soccrates: By no means; but heavenly Clouds, great divinities
to idle men; who supply us with thought and argument,
and intelligence and humbug, and circumlocution, and ability to hoax, and comprehension.”

(Aristofanes, The Clouds. 423 BC)

“Let us not be like those people who always seem to be
pallbearers at the funeral of the past. Let us utilise, by
living, the qualities of the dead.” 

(Sertillanges, ibid.  p. 15)