Reading Is Always Beneficial

CORE DEFINITION

Reading is always beneficial is a saying attributed to the Song emperor Taizong, who reportedly used it to justify his daily reading of a large reference work. It holds that any sustained reading yields some return, so the decision to begin does not require a prior guarantee that the material will be useful. The core proposition is that the value of reading is partly stochastic: the connection that turns out to matter is usually not the one being sought, so requiring a demonstrated payoff before starting eliminates the serendipitous gains. The key qualification is that the saying concerns the act of reading, not the quality of every book, and reading without reflection leaves little behind.