Quotes about Reading

Good books are over your head; they would not be good for you if they were not. And books that are over your head weary you unless you can reach up to them and pull yourself up their level.

Finally, do not try to understand every word or page of a difficult book the first time through. This is the most important rule of all; it is the essence of inspectional reading. Do not be afraid to be, or to seem to be, superficial. Race through even the hardest book. You will then be prepared to read it well the second time.

As arts, grammar and logic are concerned with language in relation to thought and thought in relation to language. That is why skill in both reading and writing is gained through these arts.

As Thomas Hobbes said, "If I read as many books as most men do, I would be as dull-witted as they are.

Remember Bacon's recommendation to the reader: "Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.

Every book should be read no more slowly than it deserves, and no more quickly than you can read it with satisfaction and comprehension.

In tackling a difficult book for the first time, read it through without ever stopping to look up or ponder the things you do not understand right away.

One constant is that, to achieve all the purposes of reading, the desideratum must be the ability to read different things at different—appropriate—speeds, not everything at the greatest possible speed. As Pascal observed three hundred years ago, "When we read too fast or too slowly, we understand nothing." Since

STEP 5 IN SYNTOPICAL READING: ANALYZING THE DISCUSSION

4. If the book is a new one with a dust jacket, READ THE PUBLISHER'S BLURB.

Many persons believe that they know how to read because they read at different speeds. But they pause and go slow over the wrong sentences. They pause over the sentences that interest them rather than the ones that puzzle them.

6. Finally, TURN THE PAGES, DIPPING IN HERE AND THERE, READING A PARAGRAPH OR TWO, SOMETIMES SEVERAL PAGES IN SEQUENCE, NEVER MORE THAN THAT.