"To read well, that is, to read..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau
To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will tax the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.
More by Henry David Thoreau
“The greatest tragedy in life is to spend your whole life fishing only to discover it was never fish that you were after.”
“Nothing can be more useful to a man than a determination not to be hurried.”
“I should say that the useful results of science had accumulated, but that there had been no accumulation of knowledge, strictly speaking, for posterity; for knowledge is to be acquired only by a corresponding experience. How can we know what we are told merely? Each man can interpret another's experience only by his own.”
More on Reading
More on Books
“Books, like men their authors, have no more than one wayofcoming intothe world, but there areten thousand to go out of it, and return no more.”
“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.”
“When the Day of Judgment dawns and people, great and small, come marching in to receive their heavenly rewards, the Almighty will gaze upon the mere bookworms and say to Peter, “Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them. They have loved reading.”