“THE DIFFERENCE between the effect produced on the mind by thinking for oneself and that produced by reading is incredibly great; and thus it is for ever increasing the original disparity between minds, by virtue whereof we are driven to the one or to the other. Thus reading forces on the mind ideas that are as foreign and heterogeneous to the tendency and mood it has at the moment, as is the seal to the wax whereon it impresses its stamp. Thus the mind is totally compelled from without to think first of one thing and then of another, for which it has absolutely no inclination or disposition. When, on the other hand, a man thinks for himself, his mind follows its own natural impulse, as this has been more specifically determined for the moment either by external environment or by some recollection. Thus the environment of intuitive perception does not impress on the mind one definite idea as does reading, but gives it merely the material and the occasion to think what is in accordance with its nature and present disposition. Therefore the mind is deprived of all its elasticity by much reading as is a spring when a weight is continually applied to it; and the surest way not to have thoughts of our own is for us at once to take up a book when we have a moment to spare. This practice is the reason why erudition makes most men more stupid and simple than they are by nature and also deprives their literary careers of every success. As Pope says, they remain: For ever reading, never to be read. [The Dunciad, ш. 193-4.]

— Arthur Schopenhauer, Parega and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays (1851) Chapter XXII On Thinking for Oneself

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