From C.S. Lewis

I love this quotation from C.S. Lewis.

The people with whom you are thrown together in the family, the college, - - - are a wider circle than the friends whom you have made for yourself in the outer world. But having a great many friends I do not prove that I have a wide appreciation of human excellence. You might as well say I prove the width of my literary taste by being able to enjoy all the books in my own study.

The answer is the same in both cases – “You chose those books. You chose those friends Of course they suit you.” The truly wide taste in reading is that which enables a man to find something for his needs on the sixpenny tray outside any secondhand bookshop. The truly wide taste in humanity will similarly find something to appreciate in the cross-section of humanity who one has to meet every day.