We are obliged at a given moment to accept necessary sacrifices. It is a painful thing to say to oneself, “By choosing one road, I am turning my back on a thousand others.” Everything is interesting, everything might be useful, everything attracts and charms a noble mind; but death is before us. Mind and matter make their demands. Willy-nilly we must submit and rest content, as to the things that time and wisdom deny us, with a glance of sympathy which is another act of homage to the truth.

Do not be ashamed not to know what you could only know at the cost of scattering your attention. Be humble about it, yes, for it shows our limitations; but to accept our limitations is a part of virtue and gives us a great dignity, that of the man who lives according to his law and plays his part. We are not much; but we are part of a whole, and we have the honor of being a part. What we do not do, we do all the same; God does it, our brethren do it, and we are with them in the unity of love.

Therefore, do not imagine you can do everything. Measure yourself, measure your task. After some experiments, make up your mind, though without rigidity, to accept your limits. Preserve, by reading and if necessary by a certain amount of writing, the advantage of your early studies, your contact with wide fields of knowledge—but for the main part of your time and strength, concentrate. The half-informed man is not the man who knows only the half of things, but the man who only half knows things. Know what you have resolved to know; cast a glance at the rest. Leave to God, who will look after it, what does not belong to your proper vocation. Do not be a deserter from yourself, through wanting to substitute yourself for all others.

Author: AG Sertillanges

From The Intellectual Life at the end of the chapter titled “The Field of Work”