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It would be a good thing to buy books if one could also buy the time to read them; but one usually confuses the purchase of books with the acquisition of their contents.
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.
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.
For to read in every spare moment, and to read constantly, is more paralysing to the mind than constant manual work, which, at any rate, allows one to follow one's own thoughts. Just as a spring, through the continual pressure of a foreign body, at last loses its elasticity, so does the mind if it has another person's thoughts continually forced upon it.--Schopenhauer
1.)There have always been bookfull blockheads or people who have read many books poorly. The ancient Grreeks called them sophmores and Hitler was such a sophmore.
2,) The publishing industry was less competitive in Schopenhauer's time so there were a lot more inferior quality books in circulation so to modern people he sounds hyperbolic
3.)Schopenhauer never consciously formulated rules for syntopical reading but may have practiced it out of common sense habit but was unaware of its larger significance
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