Almost as important to thinking clearly is writing clearly, and almost as important to writing clearly is reading rightly. To that end:

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/essays/chapter5.html

Quite a short essay, very fun to read and quite worth it.


Hence, in regard to our subject, the art of not reading is highly important. This consists in not taking a book into one’s hand merely because it is interesting the great public at the time—such as political or religious pamphlets, novels, poetry, and the like, which make a noise and reach perhaps several editions in their first and last years of existence. Remember rather that the man who writes for fools always finds a large public: and only read for a limited and definite time exclusively the works of great minds, those who surpass other men of all times and countries, and whom the voice of fame points to as such. These alone really educate and instruct.

One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind.

In order to read what is good one must make it a condition never to read what is bad; for life is short, and both time and strength limited.

Reading.

I love reading books where I can ponder over a page or two for a whole Sunday afternoon. Go over those words with exquisite pleasure. Put my finger on them.
But there are very few books like that.

I try to have my own copies of books, at least of those favourite ones, so that I can underline and highlight. And what is more, so that they are always at hand.

For the rare, and for the not so dear books, I have several notebooks where I write in passages from what I've read; I can't imagine how someone can retain anything without making some notes. That is, I have met people who say, "Oh, I love book XY!", and then, when one begins to talk about that book XY, all they seem to know is the plot, and some spicy details. Oh well.

Next time you are near a mall chain bookstore (ie. b. dalton), stop in and take note. A wall of "New Age" books, a wall of books with Dr. Phil's mug on the cover, yet not a section for philosophy. Not even a small corner of an aisle. Nobody wants to read something old. I am sure some of these books are good, but how many would you have to go through to find one? Life is too short indeed.

Fading Captain,

There are no such book stores in my country. Good old Mother Europe.

I love reading books where I can ponder over a page or two for a whole Sunday afternoon. Go over those words with exquisite pleasure. Put my finger on them.
But there are very few books like that.

I try to have my own copies of books, at least of those favourite ones, so that I can underline and highlight. And what is more, so that they are always at hand.

For the rare, and for the not so dear books, I have several notebooks where I write in passages from what I've read; I can't imagine how someone can retain anything without making some notes. That is, I have met people who say, "Oh, I love book XY!", and then, when one begins to talk about that book XY, all they seem to know is the plot, and some spicy details. Oh well.
I struggle when reading books like that, because I find myself writing two pages for every page I read. Sometimes a paragraph sets me off on a journey that I don't return from until weeks later, hungry for more - but at the same time fearing I'll never see the end of the book. And that's just one book! That's why I prefer to have my own ideas :P.

Which probably explains why I read mostly to broaden my horizons and feed my imagination. Fantasy, science fiction, history. I don't own a TV because it makes me lazy - I'll watch History channel all day. I consider that a form of reading as well: visual reading. Pictures instead of words. Which is how writing started out.

Not just the quantity or quality, but the rate at which information is available is overwhelming. I can't read enough, see enough, experience enough, because I become impatient. I'm used to knowledge at my fingertips. Impatience isn't a good quality to have when reading. People used to memorize books and poems, now we commit our memories to paper or computer, and they just become one more thing to read. How depressing! We think we have more and end up with less.

I have a bunch of books that I've read and liked sitting on my shelf. I just noticed that I've only read them once or twice and seem to think that because I've read them that I've gotten all the enjoyment I can out of them. I'll have to start reading more, even if I'm busy with school work now.

Which probably explains why I read mostly to broaden my horizons and feed my imagination.

I love old, slow books. Foster children of silence and slow time.
I don't read much though.


[quote=Jenyar]People used to memorize books and poems, now we commit our memories to paper or computer, and they just become one more thing to read. How depressing! We think we have more and end up with less.

Yes! Memorizing poems, learning by heart. I feel that a poem or a passage only truly make sense for me, speak to me, if I memorize it. So that I have it with me all the time. That I can hear it over and over again. Also, only after you have the whole poem in your head, it is that you are able to recite it properly, with the right dynamics.

I know a couple of dozens of Rilke poems -- and just on paper, they are almost dead. But in the head -- oh how wonderful -- how alive, how powerful they are! How vivid! How they speak, how they say! Da drin: das träge Treten ihrer Tatzen macht eine Stille, die dich fast verwirrt ...

"To be, or not to be" is an exquisite monologue one ought to memorize, to always carry along. For I think that only once one has it so clearly present in the mind, it is that one can truly ponder it.

Yes, but when I try to convey what I've read and memorized to other people, it's so insufficient! It's as if half of what's in my mind never comes out at all, and people are left with words without context - even if they have the whole text of it.

I guess that just reinforces it: words and things only have meaning in our minds. Why do people insist on cutting away the imagination and hold up reason - the "brain" - as if to say: "Ah! Now I've got it!"? It's like picking a flower and showing it to people saying: "See the garden?"

I just have to shake my head and say, "Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him!" :)

And as for reading in Stefworld,

"He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy,
But he who catches the joy as it flies
Lives in eternities sunrise."

I love giving my beloved books away, in the hope that thay may touch another as I was touched.

(excerpt from "The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake
edited by David V. Erdman")

Yes, but when I try to convey what I've read and memorized to other people, it's so insufficient! It's as if half of what's in my mind never comes out at all, and people are left with words without context - even if they have the whole text of it.

In that essay, Schopenhauer said:


1. When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process.

2. But, in reading, our head is, however, really only the arena of some one else’s thoughts.

3. And so it happens that the person who reads a great deal—that is to say, almost the whole day, and recreates himself by spending the intervals in thoughtless diversion, gradually loses the ability to think for himself; just as a man who is always riding at last forgets how to walk. Such, however, is the case with many men of learning: they have read themselves stupid.

4. For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read if one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost.

5. From all this it may be concluded that thoughts put down on paper are nothing more than footprints in the sand: one sees the road the man has taken, but in order to know what he saw on the way, one requires his eyes.

6. No literary quality can be attained by reading writers who possess it: be it, for example, persuasiveness, imagination, the gift of drawing comparisons, boldness or bitterness, brevity or grace, facility of expression or wit, unexpected contrasts, a laconic manner, naïveté, and the like. But if we are already gifted with these qualities—that is to say, if we possess them potentia—
we can call them forth and bring them to consciousness;
we can discern to what uses they are to be put;
we can be strengthened in our inclination, nay, may have courage, to use them;
we can judge by examples the effect of their application and so learn the correct use of them;
and it is only after we have accomplished all this that we actu possess these qualities.

7. This is the only way in which reading can form writing, since it teaches us the use to which we can put our own natural gifts; and in order to do this it must be taken for granted that these qualities are in us. Without them we learn nothing from reading but cold, dead mannerisms, and we become mere imitators.


See, the memorized text is there as an exercise to your mind, the same as a pushup to your body, if you will. If it is a good text, and if it fits your natural gifts -- then you can use it as an exercise to train your mind. And then make *your own* thoughts clear, and such that they can be successfully communicated to other people.
Without actually quoting or refering to anything.


But of course, who doesn't like to show off with all the stuff he memorized from Shakespeare -- but do those passages really feel at home in that person's mind, or are they cold, dead mannerisms?

I think we respond to things that feel at home. Our thoughts make us subjective, and our subjective bias makes us accept. Then we arrange the furniture, put some flowers on the sill, and voila! we have a showroom to invite others into.