In response to Castiglione's The Courtier: an overzealous love of pleasure is never excusable, whether the source of that pleasure is physical, intellectual, or religious. Moderation is the measure and virtue of all things; the good man enjoys life not too excessively and not too meanly, and the wise man in his wisdom holds that life often oscillates between extremes; therefore, holding that an acquaintance of both pleasure and pain is desirable, and realizing it is in the faculties of apprehension and not in the thing apprehended that experience lies, one can be esteemed a learned man when he does not shun any circumstance, but steers himself temperately and contentedly through life, enjoying it not in the way immoderate fools drink strong draught that they might become drunk, but in the way the learned rabbi sips the consecrated fruits of the Sabbath vine, knowing that each sip imparts a delicate sensibility and a fragile sensitivity to the sanctified gift of Torah and life.