What you write to me, and what I hear about you, gives me real confidence. You are not roaming from place to place or constantly looking for a change of scene. That kind of restlessness is usually a symptom of a troubled mind. In my view, the first clear sign of a well‑ordered inner life is the ability to stay where you are and be at ease in your own company.
But be careful of one thing: dipping into many authors and all kinds of books can be its own kind of wandering, a restlessness of the mind instead of the body. You need to settle yourself with a small number of serious thinkers and truly absorb what they offer if you want any of it to take root. To be everywhere is to be nowhere. A person who spends their whole life travelling ends up with a long list of hosts and almost no real friends. The same is true of the reader who never lingers with any one writer, but rushes through everything.
Food does nothing for you if it passes straight through without being absorbed. Nothing slows a recovery more than constantly changing medicines. A wound will not close if you keep trying a new salve every time you look at it. A plant that is transplanted again and again never takes root. Nothing useful can do its work if it is always being moved on. A library of many books simply scatters the mind. Since you cannot read everything you own, it is enough to own only what you can actually read.
“But,” you say, “I like to sample one book and then another.” That is a finicky appetite, and it does you no good. Many different dishes may look appealing, but they clog rather than nourish. Always read the best authors. When you feel the urge to roam, use it as a cue to return to those you have read before. Every day, add one thought to your equipment: something against poverty, something against the fear of death, something against the other blows that life deals out. After you have ranged across many ideas, choose one to digest fully before the day is done.
That is what I do myself. Out of everything I read, I claim one thing as my own. Today, I found it in Epicurus. (I sometimes make a raid into the enemy’s camp, not as a defector, but as a scout.) He says that “contented poverty is an honorable condition.” But if it is truly contented, it is not poverty at all. The poor person is not the one who has little, but the one who always wants more. What does it matter how much lies in your strongbox or your storehouses, how large your flocks are or how high your returns, if you are always eyeing what your neighbor has, always counting what you have yet to gain instead of what you already possess? So what is the right measure of wealth? First, have what you need. Second, have what is enough.