[Book Sip] "Intellectual Life Is Seeing Myself Through My Own Eyes"

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The author is an intellectual from the Victorian era who first coined the term ‘intellectual life.’ He conveys humanistic insights to those who aspire to an intellectual life, delivering intellectual pleasure. Additionally, he specifically examines the thoughts and habits that hinder intellectual enjoyment, helping readers discover the charm of intellectual living. The argument that a physical foundation must support intellectual life is intriguing. The author explains how intellectuals of the time trained their bodies to maintain intellectual life and how they found their own unique ways of living. The lifestyles of Kant, Goethe, Nietzsche, Wordsworth, George Sand, and others are introduced in detail.

Intellectual life is the act of waiting for the voice within me. Intellectual life is not a means to notify myself of my demands. Intellectual life is a tool to bestow grace and love upon myself in life. Intellectual life is looking at myself through my own eyes.

The reason we call Plato a great philosopher is that we recognized the process of thinking, not just the results of thought.

Intellectual life does not settle for just one field. Knowledge does not have a single form. It has many diverse faces. The intellectual life is a journey of unknowingly seeking out those faces.

One must discover their own mental style. Knowledge is like food; it is not wrong to crave what you want to eat, what you are curious about, and what suits your taste. Rather, knowledge forcibly implanted in our heads by others causes trouble in our lives.

Intellectual illumination is like sunlight, actually given equally to all of us. There are wealthy people who read a hundred books but feel no joy, and there are poor people who struggle to obtain and read a single book and carry that inspiration in their hearts until they die.

Art is greater than any other activity because it has never betrayed human expectations. The state oppressed its people, the economy bred poverty, religion planted vain illusions, law created criminals, and philosophy made us thirst even more for truth. Yet art comforted the human soul in every dark age.

Do not make those you wish to despise your enemies. Take pride in your enemies. Take pride in the fact that you are their enemy.

A beautiful old age is ultimately proof of having lived a beautiful youth. It means having done your best in life more fiercely than anyone else. Humans fail to age beautifully and fear aging because they know they did not do their best in the time that has passed.

The command of intellect is certainly a heavy mission. People have come to think that following the command of intellect is foolish in an era where material things are treated as civilization. But if we do not follow the command of intellect, we will ultimately live as slaves to instinct. Those who belong to intellect are free from the command of instinct.

The Joy of Intellectual Life | Written by P. G. Hammerton | Translated by Kim Wook | Chaek Ilneun Goyangi | 320 pages | 17,500 KRW