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About this quote

What does it mean?
Excessive reading can overwhelm the mind and dull natural reasoning, creating shallow scholars.
In plain terms
Reading too much can stop your mind from thinking for itself.
What can you take from it?
Balance reading with independent thinking to avoid mental stagnation.

Where it applies

  • study habits
  • learning processes
  • academic work

Putting it to work

  • limit passive consumption
  • prioritize reflection
  • engage critically

Questions to consider

  • How do you balance reading and thinking?
  • What makes learning effective?

Another view

This may undervalue the importance of extensive study.

More from William Penn

  1. Be humble. It becomes a creature, a depending and borrowed being, that lives not of itself, but breathes in another's air with another's breath, and is account…

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  2. Government seems to me to be a part of religion itself- a thing sacred in its institutions and ends.

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  3. Children, Fear God; that is to say, have an holy awe upon your minds to avoid that which is evil, and a strict care to embrace and do that which is good.

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