The original sentence "Reading history can be a mirror" is "Reading history can be wise", which comes from the article "On Knowledge" by the British philosopher Francis Bacon.

The original text is:

On knowledge

Author: Francis Bacon

Knowledge can be used as a pastime, as a decoration, and also to increase one's talents.

when you are lonely, reading can be a pastime. When you talk, knowledge can be decorated. When you act in the world, the correct use of knowledge means strength. Happy is the man who knows the cause and effect of things. Although people with practical experience can handle individual affairs, if they want to look at the whole and plan the overall situation, they can only do so by mastering knowledge.

If you are too slow to learn, you will be lazy. If you seek knowledge for decoration, you will deceive yourself and others. If you follow the rules of the book completely, you will become a paranoid bookworm.

knowledge can improve people and nature, while experiments can improve knowledge itself. Human nature is like wild flowers and plants, and learning is like pruning and transplanting. Practice attempts can test the authenticity of the revised knowledge itself.

cunning people despise learning, fools envy learning, and only smart people are good at using learning. Knowledge itself does not tell people how to use it, but the method of using it is outside books. This is a skill. You can't learn without experiment.

Don't read books just for criticizing and arguing, but don't trust books easily. The purpose of seeking knowledge is not to brag and show off, but to seek truth and enlighten wisdom.

some knowledge only needs to be tasted, and some knowledge only needs to be learned. Only a few specialized knowledge need to be studied deeply and carefully. Therefore, some books only need to read some of them, some books only need to know the outline, and for a few good books, we should read them intensively, carefully and repeatedly.

You can ask someone to read some books for you, and then read the summary of his notes. But this is only limited to books of poor quality. Otherwise, a good book will become tasteless like distilled water!

Reading enriches one's mind, discussion distinguishes right from wrong, and taking notes makes knowledge accurate.

Therefore, if a person is unwilling to take notes, his memory must be strong and reliable. If a person only wants to explore alone, his mind must be extraordinarily sharp. If someone doesn't study and wants to pretend to be knowledgeable, he must be very cunning to cover up his ignorance.

Reading history makes people wise, reading poems makes people wise, calculus makes people precise, philosophy makes people profound, ethics makes people cultivated, logic and rhetoric make people able to contend. In short, "knowledge can shape a person's character".

Moreover, all kinds of mental defects can be improved by seeking knowledge-just as physical defects can be improved by exercising. For example, playing ball is good for the waist and kidneys, archery can expand the chest and lungs, walking can help digestion, riding can make people react quickly, and so on. Similarly, a distracted person can study mathematics, because mathematics will make mistakes if he is not careful.

For those who lack analytical judgment, he can study scholasticism, because this subject is the most complicated and dialectical. People who are not good at reasoning can study law and so on. These mental defects can be cured by seeking knowledge.

About the author:

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), a British politician, philosopher and master of language, was contemporary with Shakespeare. Marx called it "the true ancestor of British materialism and the whole modern experimental science."

he comes from a noble family in London. His father, Nicholas Bacon, was Queen Elizabeth's minister in charge of the seal. Bacon was brilliant as a teenager. At the age of 12, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge University. At the age of 15, he went to work in France as an attache of the British ambassador. He became a lawyer in 1582, deputy inspector general in 167, chief inspector general in 1613, minister in charge of the seal in 1617, and was sealed as a justice in 1618.

In history, few philosophers have held such a high office except Bacon. He was dismissed for taking bribes after 1621. After that, Bacon divorced from politics and devoted himself to academic research and writing. His major works include: New Island, Great Rejuvenation, Essays on Essays, On the Value and Development of Science, etc.

Extended materials

Appreciation of On Seeking Knowledge:

The first part

(1-6 natural paragraphs): mainly discusses the correct purpose of seeking knowledge. At the beginning, the author puts forward three different types of purpose of seeking knowledge, then discusses "recreation", "decoration" and "increasing talent" in three layers, and points out three kinds of bias in seeking knowledge. Then, the role and relationship of seeking knowledge and experiment are analyzed by metaphor, and then the different attitudes of different people towards learning are analyzed, and it is concluded that the purpose of seeking knowledge is not to show off, but to find truth and enlighten wisdom.

the second part

(7-11 natural paragraph): mainly discusses the methods of seeking knowledge. It is pointed out that good books, ordinary books and rough books should be read in different ways, and more reading, discussion and taking notes should be advocated. We should only "skim" and "get a rough idea" about ordinary books, and "read intensively, carefully and repeatedly" about good books. For rough books, "just read the summaries of other people's notes." Finally, it explains the importance of reading, discussing and taking notes.

Part III

(paragraphs p>(12 and 13): Mainly discuss the role of knowledge in shaping personality and improving spirit, and encourage people to seek knowledge. This paper discusses the role of six kinds of knowledge in shaping personality and making up mental defects respectively.