Advice to Bibliophiles
A gourmet is not a glutton
Jules Janin, L'Amour des livres (Paris: J. Miard, 1866), pp. 14-15. My translation:
Do not buy a book today unless you have read the one you bought two months ago, or six weeks ago, from cover to cover. One day [Antoine] Furetière asked his father to lend him money to buy a book. “Now then,” replied the old man, “do you really know everything contained in the one you bought last week?” That was a good response. A gourmet is not a glutton... Read well, read little. In your reading become attached to this philosopher, to that poet; grow fond of both of them, and when you place them triumphantly on your bookshelf, bound in fragrant Russian leather, make sure that you can say: “Until next time. I know you well now, and I share the opinion of those great souls to whom you were a role model and a source of counsel!”
If someone is obliged to read everything he has bought in its entirety, he thinks twice before making a purchase; he is a little more wary of things that are rare and strange and sticks to the masterpieces that mankind holds in high regard. And so you will begin by acquiring — not haggling for — good and beautiful copies of those few, essential books that one reads and rereads again and again.
It's good advice, but I can't say that I follow it.