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About this quote

What does it mean?
Some books make you think about the author's ideas, while others make you think about your own.
In plain terms
Some books focus on what the writer thinks, others on what you think.
What can you take from it?
Good reading can spark your own thoughts.

Where it applies

  • choosing books
  • discussing readings
  • studying

Putting it to work

  • choose books that inspire reflection
  • track your own thoughts

Questions to consider

  • Do you read to learn or reflect?
  • How do books change you?

Another view

It oversimplifies how engagement with text works.

More from Edgar Allan Poe

  1. How many good books suffer neglect through the inefficiency of their beginnings!

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  2. I have sometimes amused myself by endeavouring to fancy what would be the fate of an individual gifted, or rather accursed, with an intellect very far superior…

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  3. If any ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize at one effort the universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment, the opportunity is h…

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