The distinction of someone with a literary culture is conspicuous. In addition to all the pleasures and all the intellectual elevation from reading, we can say this: literature forms, develops, structures personalities. Literature is able to broaden the reader’s knowledge, providing him with experiences he would never have in his life. It teaches how to deal with the most varied situations, makes one feels the most disparate and extreme emotions, throws one under different skins, different geniuses, educating for life. Thus, the good reader finds himself prepared for all kinds of situations, because his knowledge gathers an invaluable arsenal of examples. He finds himself immune to countless weaknesses, countless mistakes made by characters who have taught him a lesson. In addition, the good reader understands infinitely better other people, the world around: he is accustomed to putting himself under different situations. It cries out to the eyes that literature, in a personality, slows down, strengthens, teaches, aggrandizes — thus leaving indelible marks on the temperament and character of the reader.
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