四年前，上了一年的拉丁语后，第一次走进古希腊语课，学习一门无用的、死去已久的语言。

老师布置的第一个作业，就是让每一个人熟背William Johnson Cory对教育本质的定义。

这段话被许多研习古典语言的学者，视作学习古希腊语、拉丁语的理由：At school you are engaged not so much in acquiring knowledge as in making mental efforts under criticism. A certain amount of knowledge you can indeed with average faculties acquire so as to retain; nor need you regret the hours you spent on much that is forgotten, for the shadow of lost knowledge at least protects you from many illusions. But you go to a great school not so much for knowledge as for arts and habits; for the habit of attention, for the art of expression, for the art of assuming at a moment's notice a new intellectual position, for the art of entering quickly into another person's thoughts, for the habit of submitting to censure and refutation, for the art of indicating assent or dissent in graduated terms, for the habit of regarding minute points of accuracy, for the art of working out what is possible in a given time, for taste, for discrimination, for mental courage, and for mental soberness我现在还时时在脑海中响起这段话，尤其是这句“ for the shadow of lost knowledge at least protects you from many illusions”知识，哪怕是知识的幻影，也会成为你的铠甲，保护你不被愚昧反噬。

知识存在的价值远超过知识本身。

—今天翻微博，翻到13年发的一条微博，那时候高二，刚刚开始学希腊语不久。