From: "Jerry W. Shepperd" <shepperd AT austincc.edu>
To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
Cc: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [Homestead] ... books ....
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 17:18:12 -0600
One of my all-time favorite Ziggy cartoons is one in which he says, "Books
are friends you can read!"
Here is a well-known quote from Francis Bacon's Of Studies:
"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be
read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read
by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would only be in
the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled
books are like common distilled water, flashy things. Reading maketh a
full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And
therefore, if a man write little he had need have a great memory; if he
confer little, he had need have present wit; and if he read little, he had
need of have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories
make men wise; poetry witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy
deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend."