A notion about learning

 Epicurus wrote an epitome of his system of thought about the natural world.

His system was complicated, and he prepared a summary for students. He explained that he thought it was important for a person who was learning to keep the overall system in mind. He kept returning to the basic principles. 

 

For a comprehensive view is often required, the details but seldom.

 

Epicurus was talking about the way we learn about the natural world, a subject he called physics. It seems to me his maxim might apply to just about any subject.

• Source: Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers; translated by R.D. Hicks; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991, Vol. II, pp. 566-7.