How to Get the Most Out of Reading (A Stoic Guide)

Ryan Holiday (0:00)

I read a lot, a couple hundred books a year for the last two decades, give or take. And I think because I have a bookstore, because I'm a writer, the question I get asked a lot is like, how do you read so much? But whenever I get asked that, I can't help but think it's the wrong question. Because it's not really about quantity, it's about quality. The question is, how could I be a better reader? How could I get more out of the books that I read? And as it happened, the Stoics, who were all great readers, had a lot to say about this. And that's what we're gonna talk about in today's episode. Strategies from the ancients about how to read more, yes, but most importantly, how to be a better reader and how to get more out of the books that you read.

It's really important that we understand this is not about quantity, it's about quality. There's so many ways that you could just stuff more books into your brain. You could read audiobooks on high speed. You could take some speed reading course, which is usually a scam. You could skim. You could read lots of really short books. But it's not about getting to a number, right? It's about reading great stuff. There's an exchange between Epictetus and one of his students. His students bragging about having read all of Chrysippus. And he said, you know, if Chrysippus was a better writer, you'd have less to brag about. Chrysippus wrote something like 700 essays and books. Not all of them were good. So I think it's really important that we see the books that we're reading, not as trophies that go on the shelf, not as bragging rights, but as a really important, even sacred activity, where we're trying to get the best stuff into our brain. I don't try to rush through other things that are pleasurable and important. No, I do them slowly. I do them seriously.

I take them seriously because they matter. Seneca says, too many people have been affected with the pointless enthusiasm for worthless knowledge. And he talked about how actually what you want to be doing is lingering on the works of the master thinkers, taking it slowly, taking it methodically. Also let's talk about rereading books, right? Going back to the idea over and over and over again until you really get it. Epictetus would say, you know, I can't call someone hard working or even well educated just because I know that they are reading. He said, I have to know what they are reading. It's just absolutely important. It's not a game of quantity. It's a game of quality. I do read a lot because I get more time to do it than most people. But if you're going to take the time to do something, let's take the time to do it right.

When Epictetus is saying that it's not that you're reading, it's what you're reading, I think we can add to that. It's also how you're reading and I don't just mean the speed. I mean, are you taking notes? Are you looking things up? Are you an active reader? You should be disagreeing. You should be underlining. You should be going down the side roads. You should be exploring the ideas that the person is introducing you to.

So, the Stoics were diligent readers. They were curious readers. They were deep thinkers. They didn't just stay at the surface. They weren't passive, right? Reading is a conversation and you have to be an active participant in that conversation.

The big mistake people make is they only read stuff they agree with. They only read authors that they like. And that might be comfortable, but it keeps you the same. Seneca talked about how we should read like a spy in the enemy's camp.

It's interesting that the philosopher Seneca quotes the most in his writings is Epictetus, ostensibly his greatest philosophical rival. Admiral Stockdale, the fighter pilot, is sent in his late 30s to Stanford University. And it's there at Stanford that he is introduced to Stoic philosophy. That does change the course of his life. But actually, the biggest thing that sets him up for success, that saves him when he becomes a POW, is a course he takes at Stanford, at the height of the Cold War, called Comparative Marxist Thought. He reads all the communists in their original. He reads Marx, he reads Lenin, he reads Stalin. This was controversial stuff in the early 1960s. Even his parents were worried about him. Would he get radicalized, would his brain get broken?

But he's doing exactly what the Stoics are saying. He's literally reading like a spy in the enemy's camp. Then when he is subjected to communist interrogation techniques, when they try to break him, he knows their ideology better than they do. You have to read books that challenge you, read books that make you uncomfortable. The history books you're reading are fun and reassuring. You're not reading history, you're reading propaganda. The books you should pick up should open your worldview, should get you to see things that you didn't see before, get you to see things differently than you saw before. You should understand your own country, you should understand your industry, your profession, you should understand all of it differently as a result of the authors that you seek out. You don't have to agree with them all the time, but you should be reading people that challenge you. And you might think as someone who writes and studies Stoicism that I mostly read the Stoics. No, I've also read Epicurus. I try to read philosophers who disagree with the Stoics. I also want to open my mind to the Buddhists and the Confucians and I've read the Bhagavad Gita. I'm actually actively seeking out people other than the Stoics more often when I'm reading from the Stoics because this not only opens me up to new things, but it helps me understand what I agree with and like about the Stoics even more.