6 Importance of Reading Books

Reading books

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body’ – Richard Steele. Successful people, either in academics or business are voracious readers and writers. Though they spend a lot of time strategizing on how to get things done or working so hard to achieve their goals, however, they don’t leave reading out of it. 


Readers are leaders. Most coup plotters read before they do. A beautiful example of this is Thomas Sankara, who had to acquire education, and as well do personal studies just to develop strategies on how to oust a government and bring freedom to his people. Professors with their level of knowledge still read every day. In fact, great people can’t do without reading.
According to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Readers may be divided into four classes:
1. Sponges, who absorb all they read and return it nearly in the same state, only a little dirtied.
2. Sand-glasses, who retain nothing, and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time.
3. Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read, and return it nearly in the same state, only a little dirtied.
4. Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and reflecting, refracting, and enlarging upon it enable others to profit by it also.

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Therefore, we all have different reasons why we read and our rate of assimilation is quite different, however, the best point is to acquire knowledge.
Quickly, we would go through the 6 importance of reading and why it is necessary you do it every day;

#1 Reading improves your brain
‘A good reader has imagination, memory, a dictionary, and some artistic sense’Vladimir Nabokov. One of the best ways to increase the sharpness of the brain is reading. Reading ensures your brain is always busy. Even when you stopped reading, your brain has the assignment of thinking and meditating about what you just read. When you read, youare directly increasing the contents in your brain. You are adding more knowledgeto yourself. You know more than you used to know and you are getting betterthan what you used to be. When you are at a discussion, you won’t be lost and you will always have an idea. It makes you proud and makes you smarter. Don’t underestimate the power of reading in making you whatever you want to become in life.


#2 Reading improves Critical Thinking
‘I love to lose myself in other men’s minds. When I am not walking, I am reading; I cannot sit and think. Books think for me’ – Charles Lamb. You heard that right; Reading increases your ability to think outside the box. Through reading, you are exposed to different level of experiences; I mean live experiences from those that have passed similar and different stages of your life. Reading helps you to think outside the box almost every time because of your level of experience. Even in your business and academics, you look at different ways of getting things done and achieving a lot of things. Don’t be surprised, the more you read, the more exposed you are, and the more you can make right decisions.

#3 Reading motivates you
‘Reading, to me, is simply the expansion of one’s mind to include some people whom you just didn’t get to meet before’ – Ntozake Shange. Life is easier when you live based on the experiences of others and not yourself. It is difficult when a man has to learn from his own mistake when you could learn from other people’s mistakes. Reading opens you to the experience of others. Aside fictional books, most books are written from experiences especially historical books. There is nothing new under the sun and there is nothing new you are passing through; more than a million people have passed that stage. Reading will help you to know how they rigged their way through the problems. You tend to learn from them. 

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They ginger you to even achieve better than they did. You see how they started very bad, poor family, financial constraints and the likes, yet, they still made it. This blog even wrote on the successful business men and personalities you can learn from; such as Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Jack Ma, Ben Carson, Steve Jobs, Les Brown and many more. You can find these articles in here. They will help you, guide you and motivate you and you will finally see reasons why you have to achieve in life despite your problems.

#4 Reading improves your imagination
The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest men of past centuries – René Descartes. You must have read some books and you are washed off your feet. Probably the book was fictional, interestingly-written and you imagine how somebody could have come up with such. An example of this is this article I saw Something. You start to imagine if somebody like you wrote something of such, yes, somebody like you did. However, the person would have read a lot of books before he could also be able to write such. 


Reading helps you to think and imagine like extraordinary beings. You will always think of impossible things. Reading increases your ability to achieve a lot of things. Even in making decisions, you find it very easy just because you have seen such experiences in the books you have read. Therefore, reading helps you to imagine a lot of things. A man who reads, who thinks, or who calculates, belongs to the species and not to the sex; in his better moments, he even escapes being humanMarguerite Yourcenar.

#5 Reading improves your creativity
One of the characteristics of intelligent people is that they read a lot. You start to wonder why some people are more creative than you are. They think so weird that you don’t just expect what came out from their mouth. Probably you never even thought about what they said. Actually, reading has exposed and enlightened them to different stages and forms of life. They can venture into whatever they delight in, all it takes them is to get a book in line with that direction, read it and get the idea on how to achieve what is on their mind. Read so that you can be creative. 

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Reading is the best form of self-development. You can develop yourself by staying hours or days in your own room alone and reading. By the time you are out, you will be refreshed with new ideas. You become a different person whole level of reasoning is higher than what it used to be.

#6 Reading reduces Stress
If you want to ease the pressure in your head or you want to unwind time solitarily, then get a book to read. We have interesting books, science fiction books, discoveries, historical books, war books, motivational books and many more. Reading something that will open your eyes to another side of life is good enough to relieve you of stress. One of the books I recommend for you to read is 48 Laws of Power. So many that have read it would not even want you to read it if you have never read it, because that is there source of inspiration when it comes to game of power and business. 


Hardly would you even see a successful business man that has not read it. Politicians delight so much in the book. Aside reading the book to learn history or theatrics involved in power, it would also make you feel relaxed and relieved. Remember, ‘If a book is worth reading, then it is worth buying’ – John Ruskin.

Thank you for following this article to the end. We hope you make use of it, digest it, share it and imbibe the art and spirit of learning. 'Read in order to live' - Gustave Flaubert 

We recommend our Motivational Library for you; you can check up the books there and you can also download our motivational audios.

Remember, ‘If you want to hide a thing from an African, keep it in a book’. Don’t let that be your case.

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