Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits.
readingquotes
Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts. Many books, moreover, serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance.
You can apply yourself voluntarily to reading and learning, but you cannot really apply yourself to thinking: thinking have to be kindled, as a fire is by a draught, and kept going by some kind of interest in its object, which may be an objective interest or merely a subjective one.
There are 2 motives for reading a book; 1. That you enjoy it, 2. that can boast about it on goodreads.
There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.
A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.
This edition is based on Orwell’s typescript of November 1948, amended according to his proof corrections and taking in a few readings that are deemed to be his from the American first edition.
After all, what is reading but a vice, like drink or venery or any other form of excessive self-indulgence? One reads to tickle and amuse one’s mind; one reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking.
No, give me the past. It doesn’t change; it’s all there in black and white, and you can get to know about it comfortably and decorously and, above all, privately – by reading. As reading becomes more and more habitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number of people will discover that books will give them all the pleasures of social life and none of its intolerable tedium.
There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.
