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Text/[de] Schopenhauer
Source/Reader Magazine, Issue 17, 2018
How nice it would be if you could buy a book and at the same time you can buy time to read!
However, people often confuse the two completely different behaviors of buying books and reading books to get knowledge.
Expecting a person to remember everything he has read is just as asking him to keep everything he has eaten in his stomach.
Food nourishes his body, books enrich his spirit, and it is these two that make him what he is.
But just as the body absorbs only the food it can digest, a man can only remember what interests him, that is, what is in line with his overall thoughts or interest goals.
"Revision is the mother of learning." Any important book should be read twice in one fell swoop.
This is partly because on the second reading, we can better grasp the overall content of the book - knowing the end, we can really solve the end;
On the other hand, when we read again, we may have different states of mind, and thus we will get different impressions from the book—as if we were admiring the same object in different lights.
Every work is the essence of a man's thoughts, so it is always more beneficial to read a man's writings than to associate with him, even if the man has the greatest ideas.
Even what an ordinary man writes may be instructive or pastimely and worth reading— for these are the essence of his thoughts, the result of all his thinking and research;
And when dealing with himself, the situation may be unsatisfactory.
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It is possible to enjoy reading his books and not to be dissatisfied with them.
When the cultivation of ideology and culture reaches a certain height, we can only find entertainment and entertainment from books, rather than seeking pleasure from people.
Nothing purifies our hearts more than ancient classics.
Casually pick up a classic, even if you only read it for half an hour, you will feel that the whole person is refreshed, the body and mind are comfortable and clear, the spirit is detached and uplifted, as if it has been cleansed by a mountain spring.
Is this because of the perfect character of ancient languages, or is it because of the greatness of the writer's thoughts, whose works have survived for millennia? Maybe it's both.
But I know that once we give up learning ancient languages (which are now a trend), a new literary work will emerge that is superficial, crude, worthless and aesthetically unattractive.
Author: [De] Schopenhauer. Source: Reader Magazine, No. 17, 2018, original titled "Reading Sees Life".