The world is full of important ideas, but I'll follow my own mind. - Sten Nadolny

In the study of history, slowness is an advantage. The scholar decelerates the fast-moving events of past days until his mind can fathom them. Then... he can demonstrate to the rashest king how he should have acted in battle.

'History is intercourse with greatness and duration. It allows us to rise above time.' ...that was tempting. But he couldn't earn any money with it.

He now understood navigation. He had started with Gower's Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Navigation. ...The book itself was the ocean; when he closed it he could cover up deep water. He had read Moore's Practical Navigator and had tried Euclid. He found arithmetic easy, because nobody pushed him.