Intellectuals have to do a lot of hate-reading.
Dec 232019
The dead alive and busy.
—Vaughan
Intellectuals have to do a lot of hate-reading.
Many modern ills trace to the fateful decision to teach stupid people how to read.
It is more common to talk well than to listen well, and to write well than to read well.
It is a great honor for a book to be burned.
The Two Kinds of Useful Books
1. Technical, scientific, mathematical
2. Hurts your feelings
If you’re going to read only one book on a subject, don’t bother.
The first rung on the ladder of literacy is pedantry, or as we now say, fact-checking.
A lifetime of reading novels will teach you how to feel superior to a world in which you are no use.
There is nothing too profound for the right interpreter to grind into banality.
Many books are good for no one, but no books are good for everyone.