Leaders Are Readers

If you want to be taken seriously, get serious about reading.

Library of Alexandria (sepia), 1890 (public domain - Wikimedia Commons)

“A library of wisdom, is more precious than all wealth, and all things that are desirable cannot be compared to it. Whoever therefore claims to be zealous of truth, of happiness, of wisdom or knowledge, must become a lover of books.” — Plato

After the War of 1812, when the Library of Congress had been burned, Thomas Jefferson offered to sell his personal library to the U.S. government.

Jefferson’s was the largest personal library in the country, and the 6,487 books that he sold to Congress (for $23,950) more than doubled the size of the library that was lost.

Reading was vital to Jefferson’s education and his state of mind.

“I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.” ― Montesquieu

While I’m not as well-versed in Montesquieu as Jefferson, I do enjoy reading.

You know that. I’ve written about it before:

What a wondrous time in which we live, when we can carry around libraries the size of T…