The improvement of understanding is for two ends: first, our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others.
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
A fine remedy for our anxieties over our low status in society may be to travel—whether literally or figuratively, by viewing works of art—through the gigantic spaces of the world.