"Just as one spoils the stomach by..." - Quote by Arthur Schopenhauer
Just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. 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.
More by Arthur Schopenhauer
“Dissimulation is innate in woman, and almost as much a quality of the stupid as of the clever.”
“Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.”
“The fourfold root of the principle of sufficent reason is "Anything perceived has a cause. All conclusions have premises. All effects have causes. All actions have motives.”
More on Reading
“All of the insights that we might ever need have already been captured by others in books. The important question is this: In the last ninety days, with this treasure of information that could change our lives, our fortunes, our relationships, our health, our children and our careers for the better, how many books have we read?”
“Tis the good reader that makes the good book.”
“We expect a great man to be a good reader.”
More on Mind
“Commonplace minds usually condemn what is beyond the reach of their understanding.”
“The real seat of taste was not the tongue but the mind”
“Every season is likeable, and wet days and fine, red wine and white, company and solitude. Even sleep, that deplorable curtailment of the joy of life, can be full of dreams; and the most common actions──a walk, a talk, solitude in one’s own orchard──can be enhanced and lit up by the association of the mind. Beauty is everywhere, and beauty is only two finger’s-breadth from goodness.”