'Since therefore the knowledge of and survey of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning or error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less danger, scout into the region of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates and hearing all manner of reason? And this is the benefit which may be had of books promiscuously read.'
John Milton in Karen Swallow Prior, Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books, p.15.
