You should bring your mind to the reading of a book, or to the study of any subject, as you take an axe to the grindstone; not for what you get from the stone, but for the sharpening of the axe. While it is true that the facts learned from books are worth more than the dust from the stone, even in much greater ratio is the mind more valuable than the axe. Bacon says: "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man; and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; morals grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend."
CHAPTER XXV.
RICHES WITHOUT WINGS.
Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. —Eph. iv. I.
Abundance consists not alone in material possession, but in an uncovetous spirit. —Selden.
Less coin, less care; to know how to dispense with wealth is to possess it. —Reynolds.
Rich, from the very want of wealth,
In heaven's best treasures, peace and health.
—Gray.
Money never made a man happy yet; there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one. —Franklin.
There are treasures laid up in the heart, treasures of charity, piety, temperance, and soberness. These treasures a man takes with him beyond death, when he leaves this world. —Buddhist Scriptures.