The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest people of past centuries.
René Descartes Discourse on the Method, Part I (1637)
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When and why it was written
- When
- Published in 1637, in the autobiographical opening of the Discourse.
- Why
- Descartes is describing his own education and what he took from it before he began doubting it.
What it means
The comparison is exact in a way that is easy to skim past. A conversation is selective, and its authors chose which parts of themselves to present.
Descartes adds the qualifier that matters in the following pages: such conversation is study, not living, and he eventually left the library because too much of it was talk.
Read the source
Discourse on the Method, 1637
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