Then I Said In My Heart, That This Also Is Vanity

And Niemand came among the readers and found them greatly pleased with themselves.

“We have read the old books,” they said. “The feed shall not have us.”

Then Niemand laughed.

“You fools! Have you learned nothing from your old books except how superior you are to those who have not read them? You have made a vanity of the cure for vanity. You have built yourselves a little temple from the bones of dead sages, and installed a mirror upon the altar.

“Read, then. Read deeply. Read against your age and against yourselves. But do not imagine that Homer has made you incorruptible, or Montaigne immune to folly, or Nietzsche proof against the herd. The first stupidity from which a reader must guard himself is the conviction that stupidity belongs to other people.

“Therefore keep watch. Doubt your enthusiasms. Distrust the applause of your friends. And whenever you hear yourself say, ‘People such as we cannot be taken in’ — know that the capture may already be complete.”