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OF STUDIES
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief
use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in dis
course; and for ability, is in the judgment, and disposition of busi
ness. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars,
one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling
of affairs, come best, from those that are learned. To spend too much
time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is af
fectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of
a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for
natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning, by study;
and studies themselves, do give forth directions too much at large,
except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn stud
ies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach
not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above
them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor
to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to
weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swal
lowed, 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. Some
books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by
others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and
the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common dis
tilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a
ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write
