In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time – none, zero. — Charlie Munger
Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed (successfully or unsuccessfully) before. It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead. — General James Mattis
The two above quotes summarize what I value about reading so much. There’s no better way of obtaining knowledge then by having conversations with some of the smartest people that ever lived across space and time. That’s the power of reading.
But it’s not just about actually reading words on a page or screen, it’s about processing the thoughts and ideas described. That’s why in addition to my voracious reading habit, I’ve also developed a particular way of keeping track of all the best ideas that I come across.
The method that I’ve developed is to heavily highlight and write notes directly in the books I am reading as I read them. Then, once I’ve finished them and a couple of weeks have passed, I go back through the book and pull out all of the best notes and ideas that I came across into a separate document for each book.
Since I’ve been doing this for quite some time now, I have collected a long list of notes on some of the best books I’ve read. Though I was a bit hesitant at first to share all of these notes with the world, in sticking with the principles that make reading so powerful, I am sharing my notes here as a way to hopefully help others develop their own ideas and to encourage more people to read some of these powerful books.
I hope you find these notes to be of value and thanks for reading!
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