The art of not reading

Wise words, found in my twitter stream:

The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. – A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.

That’s from Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms. Obviously, he was really  thinking of blogs and websites. And twitter streams.

This too:

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.