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Excerpted from A Whirld of Words: A Reader's Commonplace Dictionary. Find the LINK to the Introduction below.
reading
China's massive influence on the Japanese language came almost entirely through reading Chinese, not speaking Chinese, a phenomenon that has occurred with no other language in history; 'traditional' Japanese culture is, in fact, the product of Chinese reading
(Fischer 2003) p. 124
in the late archaic period the custom of reading aloud had 'animated' inscribed materials
(Cavallo et al. 1999) p. 11
Lycurgus, legendary lawgiver of Sparta, was said to have disdained written law, trusting rather in education, and the comparative paucity of documents – even inscriptions – in Sparta is notorious. According to popular rumor, Spartans were illiterate
(Bowman and Woolf 1994) p. 37
Legere est gratum. It is pleasant to read. Legere bonos libros est gratum. It is pleasant to read good books.
Puerum bonos libros legere oportet. The boy ought to read good books. (It is necessary that the boy read good books)
(Hines and Welch 1962) p. 388
though the Latin verb legere was commonly used in the ancient world to denote the act of reading, it also meant to single out, select, extract, gather, collect, even to plunder and purloin. In the classical sense of the word, reading was by no means a passive or receptive act. At its most basic level, reading was an inherently active, discriminating, and selective exercise. One did not merely encounter a text; one harvested it, separating the wheat from the tares in order to glean the pith and marrow. The term also signified a kind of rapine, even the violent confiscation of the fruit of another man's tree
(Havens 2001) p. 8
as far as we can tell, no documents in antiquity were intended for ‘silent’ reading, and only a few were intended for private individuals to read. They were always meant to be read out loud, usually to a group of people. For the most part, they were simply necessary surrogates for oral communication. This was particularly true of ancient letters
(Witherington 2009) p. 8
Crates said of the writings of Heraclitus, that they needed a good swimmer for a reader, so that the depth and weight of Heraclitus’ learning should not sink him and drown him
(Montaigne 1958) p. 817
an anecdote drawn from the Vita Marciana, an anonymous life of Aristotle: and so diligent was he [Aristotle] that when he was a student of Plato, his house was called the 'house of the reader.' Quite often, Plato used to say, 'let us go to the house of the reader', and coming within earshot, he would cry out, 'The Intellect [i.e., Aristotle] is present: the lecture-room is silent'
(Snyder 2000) p. 92
Pliny held all time wasted that went not to study. He read at meals, in the bath, and when carried in the litter. No book, he said, could be wholly bad
(Syme 1958) p. 62
the love of letters and the benefit of reading are bounded but by the extent of life; I would have the best authors commenced at once, and read always
(Quintilian 1965) p. 66, 110
before its destruction in 70 A.D., Jerusalem is said to have had 480 synagogues each with both a 'house of reading' (bet sefer) and a 'house of learning' (bet midrash) attached – the former providing young children with instruction in basic skills to read scripture, the latter offering older children instruction in the oral Torah; the Torah and Prophets had a place in Jewish life that was never approximated by any literature in Greek or Roman society. The Jewish scriptures were meticulously preserved, transcribed, studied, and interpreted by scribes and sages. They were learned by children in schools, recited publicly in synagogue and temple, and privately read and contemplated. They set the standards to which later Jewish literature aspired – imitating and adapting the styles, forms, and genres established by the religious authority of the scriptures
(Gamble 1995) p. 7, 19
the relative frequency with which accents, punctuation, and breathing marks occur in Christian manuscripts, compared with the larger run of ancient literary texts, corroborates a special interest in public reading
(Gamble 1995) p. 74
in the imperial age reading attained its broadest diffusion in the ancient world
(Cavallo et al. 1999) p. 11
read often and learn all you can; let sleep steal upon you with a book in your hand, and let the sacred page catch your drooping head
(Jerome 1933) p. 87
the injunction in the Benedictine Rule that books were to be read per ordinem ex integro, from beginning to end
(Southern 1990) p. 448
Gregory the Great argued that the processes of reading ought to be a dialogue with a text – particularly the text of the Bible
(Cavallo et al. 1999) p. 99
the absence of interword space and interpunctuation at the end of antiquity was a reflection of the particular relationship of the antique reader to the book. The reintroduction of word separation by Irish and Anglo-Saxon scribes marks a dramatic change in that relationship and constitutes the great divide in the history of reading between antique cultures and those of the modern Occident
(Saenger 1997) p. 12
for the history of reading and the book, Arabic culture was to the medieval Latin West what Greek culture had been to the Roman Empire in late antiquity
(Saenger 1997) p. 123
the privacy afforded by silent reading and writing increased the display of irony and cynicism. Even more importantly, private reading provided a medium for expressing subversive political thoughts. Private reading stimulated a revival of the antique genre of erotic art
(Saenger 1997) p. 274
profound changes took place in reading in the age of scholasticism; it was primarily in the schools, then in the universities, that reading took place; the scholastic age brought a radical renewal of the very concept of the act of reading; the new scholastic reading was totally different from the monastic model; the greatest change that scholasticism brought to reading lay in the importance of reading in the context of teaching
(Cavallo et al. 1999) p. 103
the revolution in reading preceded the revolution of the book, well before the mid-fifteenth century
(Cavallo et al. 1999) p. 24
the papal bull Dominici gregis of 1564 laid down universal rules relative to reading
(Fischer 2003) p. 222
reading puts my judgment to work
(Montaigne 1959) p. 252
the reading of history is everybody's business
(Montaigne 1958) p. 50
writing was among the most visible and widespread habits of early modern reading. To read with pen in hand underscoring or otherwise marking memorable passages; to correct errors or emend the text and cite variant readings; to gloss or interline with technical or rhetorical terms or with translations and citations; to summarize and cross-refer; to outline and paraphrase; to make synopses and provide interpretations; to extract maxims from Scripture and sermons, from plays and poems, from prayers and devotions; to move themes, arguments, and topics, indeed whole poems, elegies, and epitaphs, recipes and remedies, speeches and letters from one transcript to another, from printed book or manuscript text to commonplace compilation, notebook, or miscellany – these were indeed among the most common place acts of the early modern reader
(Alcorn et al. 2001) p. 12
all government of action is to be gotten by knowledge, and knowledge best by gathering many knowledges, which is reading
(Sidney 1860) p. 103
[in the Renaissance] the goal of reading was the construction of a storehouse, or library, of useful phrases, passages, and ideas
(Sherman 1995) p. 33
one of the Renaissance's great works on reading – Don Quijote 2.9.18
(Grafton 1997) p. 197
reading maketh a full man
(Bacon 1985) p. 209
Descartes was a man of very little reading
(Ortega y Gasset 1961) p. 176
the use of our reading is to aid us in thinking
Edward Gibbon (Jackson 1981) p. 98
by reading, a man does, as it were, antedate his life, and makes himself contemporary with ages past
Jeremy Collier (Hitchings 2005) p. 84
you can never be wise unless you love reading; a man ought to read just as inclination leads him: for what he reads as a task will do him little good
Samuel Johnson (Boswell 1952) p. 260, 372
[I] have read almost everything – a library-cormorant – I am deep in all out of the way books
Coleridge (Holmes 1990) p. 130
reading is the greatest pleasure in life
Hazlitt (Jackson 1981) p. 58
Jane Austen's phrase, a ‘reading man’
(Johnson 1991) p. 695
there is creative reading as well as creative writing
(Emerson 2000) p. 48
how many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book
Henry David Thoreau (Gilbar 1991) p. 6
now, it’s too late for me to begin shovelling and sifting at alphabeds and grammar-books. I’m getting to be a old bird, and I want to take it easy. But I want some reading—some fine bold reading, some splendid book in a gorging Lord-Mayor’s-Show of wollumes’ (probably meaning gorgeous, but misled by association of ideas); ‘as’ll reach right down your pint of view, and take time to go by you
(Dickens 1967) p. 50
by-the-by, that very word, Reading, in its critical use, always charms me. An actress’s Reading of a chambermaid, a dancer’s Reading of a hornpipe, a singer’s Reading of a song, a marine painter’s Reading of the sea, the kettle-drum’s Reading of an instrumental passage, are phrases ever youthful and delightful
Eugene Wrayburn (Dickens 1967) p. 542
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. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short
(Schopenhauer 1970) p. 210
most writers have read less than they get credit for; Macaulay had read more
(Gay 1974) p. 119
the effect of historical reading is analogous, in many respects, to that produced by foreign travel
Macaulay (Stern 1973) p. 85
the practice of reading is an art – the skill to ruminate
(Nietzsche 1956) p. 157
I always read myself into my books
(Nietzsche 1974) p. 49
a constant compulsion to listen to other selves
(Nietzsche 1979) p. 93
do you want to get at new ideas? read old books; do you want to find old ideas? read new ones
Lord Lytton (Jackson 1981) p. 106
the process is in the highest sense, an exercise, a gymnast's struggle; that the reader is to do something for himself, must be on the alert, must himself or herself construct indeed the poem, argument, history, metaphysical essay – the text furnishing the hints, the clue, the start or frame-work
(Whitman 1950) p. 515
this mystery of reading
Frederick Douglass (Fischer 2003) p. 285
the great, the incomparable art of reading
(Steiner 1960) p. 168
horizontal reading, the kind that skips along, for simple mental skating down the page; vertical reading, immersion in the small abyss which is each word
(Ortega y Gasset 1961) p. 76
'one reads in order to ask questions’, Kafka once told a friend
(Manguel 1996) p. 89
when I began to read the nursery rhymes for myself, and, later, to read other verses and ballads, I knew that I had discovered the most important things, to me, that could be ever. There they were, seemingly lifeless, made only of black and white, but out of them, out of their own being, came love and terror and pity and pain and wonder and all the other vague abstractions that made our ephemeral lives dangerous, great and bearable
Dylan Thomas (Gilbar 1991) p. 138
reading is a matter of taste, not morality
(Jackson 1981) p. 185
readers, real readers, are almost as wild a species as writers. When you begin to read a poem you are entering a foreign country whose laws and language and life are a kind of translation of your own
(Jarrell 1955) p. 23, 80
to read is to translate
(Auden 1968) p. 3
the way one reads a book is the way one reads life. The reading of books is for the joy of corroboration
(Miller 1969) p. 132, 145
our reading should always be critical
(Nevins 1962) p. 43
it is not characteristic of American executives to read books, except books on ‘management’ and mysteries. Avoidance of words being rather general, they are very much of the age of the ‘briefing’, of the digest, of the two-paragraph memo. Such reading as they do, they often delegate to others, who clip and summarize for them. They are talkers and listeners rather than readers or writers. They pick up much of what they know at the conference table and from friends in other fields
(Mills 1969) p. 130
we must read not to understand others but to understand ourselves. To read is to let someone else work for you – the most delicate form of exploitation
(Cioran 1991) p. 18, 166
easy reading means hard writing
(Trevor-Roper 1957) p. 249
reading is adversarial: the text is the site of an active and biased appropriation of the author's material
(Sherman 1995) p. 65
Protestantism rested on Scripture; in reading lay its definition, practice, power, and propaganda
(Johns 1998) p. 408
reading en creux, that is, deciphering texts to find in them precisely what has supposedly been censored or obliterated – was a defensive tactic used by all readers when a dominant order attempted to keep them from reading prohibited works; this was the case with Protestants in the territories of the Counter-Reformation, Catholics in Protestant lands, and rebel spirits in absolutist regimes
(Cavallo et al. 1999) p. 32
the eye movements of modern rapid reading: saccades of maximum mean length with minimal deviations from the mean; nouns and verbs are processed by different regions of the brain
(Saenger 1997) p. 47, 70
the origins of rapid, silent reading lie in the scribal techniques and grammatical teachings that developed in Ireland and England in the seventh and eighth centuries. The first separated Latin manuscript books in western Europe were Irish, and their text format was probably inspired by Syriac Gospel books
(Saenger 1997) p. 82
Frank Kermode, ‘The Plain Sense of Things’, points to three general circumstances of reading that tend to push us away from the literal: the inherent proclivity of the mind for metaphor; the pressure exerted by context, and the pressure of authoritative institutions of interpretation. Three complicating circumstances of reading
(Alter 1992) p. 88
there is only one way to defeat the enemy, that is to read as well as one can
(Bellow 2010) p. 147
Belinsky: Don’t you bother with reading, Katya, words just lead you on. They arrange themselves every which way, with no can to carry for the promises they can’t keep, and off you go!
(Stoppard 2003) p. 92
Reading requires thinking; reading teaches thinking. The best readers are the best thinkers
[JS]
LINK to the Introduction to A Whirld of Words: A Reader's Commonplace Dictionary.
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