Quotation
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“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”
Francis Bacon · Empiricism · Renaissance · 1625
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the sentence as a rank of reading: some books deserve a sample, some a full but swift taking-in, and a few the slow work of digestion, by which he means being read wholly and with diligence. It sits beside his warning not to read only to contradict, believe, or talk. A rival reading hears a permission to skip anything difficult, but the few that are to be chewed are precisely the ones that should not be skimmed. The sentence is his English in Of Studies, in the 1625 form of the essay.
Did Francis Bacon really say this?
The library’s label is Well attested. Bacon's own English in the 1625 essay Of Studies. Tasting, swallowing, and digesting are his ranks of attention, not a whim about skimming. The wording is secure.
Where it comes from
Essays, Of Studies
Approximate date: 1625.
How to use it
A student on a train to Newcastle with three PDFs does not have to digest all three before the seminar, and Bacon's rank would ask which one is the few. Tasting the other two is not cheating if it is chosen rather than drifted into. Swallowing a book that needed chewing, in order to have a line for the group chat, is the misuse the essay has already named; The train is short; The rank is how the shortness is spent.
A mindset reading
The image is digestive on purpose, and digestion is work, not a feeling of having consumed a text. People quote the sentence in praise of skimming and forget the some few. He also says, in the same essay, that reading makes a full person and that conference and writing do other work; A diet of tasting only is not the counsel; It is one rank, for books that are not the main nourishment.
Understand the philosophy
The key term is digestion, the diligent full reading he reserves for a few books, as against tasting and swallowing. Of Studies is counsel literature in his own English, revised into this form in 1625. The sentence is secure. It belongs with the line, already in this library, about reading to weigh and consider; Together they are a small theory of attention, not a proverb about how little one can get away with.
- knowledge
- mind
FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the sentence as a rank of reading: some books deserve a sample, some a full but swift taking-in, and a few the slow work of digestion, by which he means being read wholly and with diligence. It sits beside his warning not to read only to contradict, believe, or talk. A rival reading hears a permission to skip anything difficult, but the few that are to be chewed are precisely the ones that should not be skimmed. The sentence is his English in Of Studies, in the 1625 form of the essay.
Did Francis Bacon really say this?
Well attested. Bacon's own English in the 1625 essay Of Studies. Tasting, swallowing, and digesting are his ranks of attention, not a whim about skimming. The wording is secure.
Which work is it in?
Essays, Of Studies Approximate date: 1625.