We are so overwhelmed with quantities of books, that we hardly realise any more that a book can be valuable, valuable like a jewel, or a lovely picture, into which you can look deeper and deeper and get a more profound experience every time.
We should read other people's books in order to learn what we feel; it is our own thoughts we should be developing, even if it is another writer's thought that help us to do so.
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas will for seven days appear to you in their benign and peaceful aspect. Their light will shine upon you, ... Wonderful and delightful though they are, The Buddhas may nevertheless frighten you. Do not give in to your fright! Do not run away! Serenely contemplate the spectacle before you! Overcome your fear, and feel no desire! Realize that these are the rays of the grace of the Buddhas, who come to receive you into their Buddha-realms. Pray to them with intense faith and humility.
There is a wonderful book called "Gandhi's Truth," by Erik Erikson, the psychologist. It is a great book. And I remember reading that and thinking about this connection between what we think in our personal lives and how that manifests itself in our politics. Those are two books, just off the top, that I think are sort of representative of reading that I did at that time. I never get a chance to read anymore.
You need not expect to get your book right the first time. Go to work and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God's adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by.
But there is no end to the praise of books, to the value of the library. Who shall estimate their influence on our population where all the millions read and write ? It is the joy of nations that man can communicate all his thoughts, discoveries and virtues to records that may last for centuries.
In company with people of your own trade you ordinarily speak of other writers' books. The better the writers the less they will speak about what they have written themselves. Joyce was a very great writer and he would only explain what he was doing to jerks. Other writers that he respected were supposed to be able to know what he was doing by reading it.
Be sure then to read no mean books. Shun the spawn of the press on the gossip of the hour. Do not read what you shall learn, without asking, in the street and the train.
Ah, yet, e'er I descend to th' grave, May I a small House and a large Garden have. And a few Friends, and many Books both true, Both wise, and both delightful too. And since Love ne'er will from me flee, A mistress moderately fair, And good as Guardian angels are, Only belov'd and loving me.
Most of the classical citations you shall hear or read in the current journals or speeches were not drawn from the originals, but from previous quotations in English books.
Forget about every other lesson in the book. You have to be able to tap your foot or else none of what you doing you are not gonna have any control of your symptom.