In his essay, German Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote “... Much reading robs the mind of all elasticity”, making the claim that it is better for a man to experience the world himself rather than through a book. I agree with Schopenhauer’s claim because people need experience to form their own opinions and be free from outside influences. First, people need to have experiences in other to form ideas and opinions that are their own. Reading the works of others is an excellent way to become learned, but “learning makes most men more stupid and foolish then they are by nature." or, as Smash Mouth put it, “Your brain gets smart, but your head gets dumb.” This means that without actually experiencing the world for what it is, a person will become so tangled up in the theories and hypotheses of others that they won’t be able to make their …show more content…
Oscar Wilde makes a similar claim in The Picture of Dorian Gray, stating that all influences are immoral because they turn a person into an actor in their own lives. For this reason, it is important for the individual to follow their own thoughts about a subject before getting another’s opinion. Once you know another’s opinion on something, it is impossible to form your own without the influence of their thoughts. “Reading forces thoughts upon the brain that are as foreign and heterogeneous to the bent and mood in which it may be for the moment, as the seal is to the was on which it stamps its imprint.”, which tells us that too much reading influences our thoughts in an unnatural way. Some may argue, however, that reading will educate an individual so they can form an opinion. While this may be the case in some situations, for the most part consuming the opinions of others before an individual makes their own will guarantee that it is not their own and maybe even contrary to what they really think and