It would be a good thing to buy books if one could also buy the time to read them; but one usually confuses the purchase of books with the acquisition of their contents. To desire that a man should retain everything he has ever read, is the same as wishing him to retain in his stomach all that he has ever eaten."
And here's another piece of advice: "Any kind of important book should immediately be read twice, partly because one grasps the matter in its entirety the second time, and only really understands the beginning when the end is known; and partly because in reading it the second time one’s temper and mood are different, so that one gets another impression; it may be that one sees the matter in another light."
Though it was written a hundred and fifty years ago, the essay "On Reading and Books" still has much to tell us and, for nineteenth century German philosophy, it is significantly funnier than you might expect.
