Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Just some of the physical books on my read / re-read list. Click for the big picture.
What does that mean?
The Twitter version of this quote is interesting enough, but the full version of the quote is, I believe, a bit more interesting: “Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.”
The Twitter version reminds us of how much there is to know, and how little time we have to read even the small portion that is of interest to us. My stack of ‘to be read’ books has long since become too unstable to be a single stack and is now a multi-column colossus in the corner of the room.
The full quote goes a bit deeper, pointing a finger at me (and perhaps a few of you as well), warning us that buying the book doesn’t automatically transmit the contents of the book into your head. I hope someday that will be the case.
For now, consider your bookcases. How many books are in your bookcases that you have not read? And how many are in there which you have forgotten the contents of? I try to keep my unread books separate, but there are a few up there that I haven’t read and more than a few which I have long since forgotten.
Why is knowledge important?
While the Twitter size quote is funny and to the point, it’s not very deep. The full quote, however, is rather profound. It’s easy to buy a book, and then pretend you know what knowledge is hidden within. Sometimes, we might get part way through a book, and stop reading, but somehow still think we know what was in the book, even the parts we failed to read.
This can be particularly true when reading about things of which you already have some knowledge. It gets boring, reading things we already know, so we start skimming, then skipping pages, then chapters. In the end, all we have really skipped was the knowledge.
Another way to put this is “Why buy a book if you aren’t going to read it?” We all have good intentions, and want to have some books to fall back on, should we find ourselves with an unexpected afternoon free. Sometimes it’s because the spine would look great in the library. But, at least for me, it is most often something I’d like to know more about, but don’t have enough passion to make time to read it.
Where can I apply this in my life?
There are tons of quotes about learning from the mistakes of others, and using books in that role. I’ll presume we all have a favorite. We know what books are for, and how to use them. The important part is getting the knowledge out of the book, right?
What books are on your to-be-read (or to-be-re-read) list? For me, I’ve been making time to re-read a fiction series that my son is interested, so that I can talk to him about it (Orson Scott Card’s books, The Ender & Shadow series). It is truly amazing the amount of information I had forgotten. Lost knowledge, anyone?
Note that I don’t differentiate between audio books, paperbacks, hard-backs or electronic forms. I have listened to everything from deep philosophy to biographies to some fun fiction in audio format. I have some of my favorite reading (both light and heavy) on an e-reader (Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, and Plato, Machiavelli, Livy).
I also have several huge bookcases full of books (two 6’x6′ pine monsters full of paperbacks, an oak monster 5.5’x8′ for the hard-backs, and several smaller sets of bookcases scattered throughout the house. Plus the kids each have started their own collections. It’s all knowledge, waiting for the chance to get inside your head.
How are you going to “buy” the time needed to read those books? We all have time to do what we need to do, if we are brutally honest about what our needs are, and what are merely wants and desires. What I did was make a little time in my schedule to read the books. I cut out a few TV shows and cut back on football watching to make the time. What do you value less than the knowledge in those books?
Which book will you start with? Will it be an old friend, or a newcomer? Will it be a new topic, or a different view of something familiar? How will you read it? For serious study, I skim the book, taking notes and trying to understand the big picture. Then I follow up with a slow and thorough read, to digest the details. For fun, I usually take a middle road and just run through it once. How about you, do you have a preferred method (or methods)?
So many books to read and so little time. But then, that’s the point of the first half of the quote, isn’t it? No matter how you do it, reading can take you places you have never been, and to places that could never be. It can bring you the wisdom of the ages and the brightest ideas of today. What will it be, then?
From: Twitter, @philo_quotes
confirmed at : http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/arthurscho121051.html
Photo by the author, using his cell phone (which explains the lousy quality)
