Read well... and live

"First of all, lest we uselessly fritter away our religious life in cell, we should, at once with zeal and discretion, devote ourselves to studies fitting to us; and this, not from an itching desire for learning, nor from a wish to publish books, but because wisely ordered reading endows the mind with greater steadiness and provides a foundation for the contemplation of heavenly things.

"For they are mistaken who think that they can easily attain to interior union with God, while having previously neglected the study of the Word of God, or later abandoned it altogether.

"Intent, then, on the rich substance of truth rather than the froth of words, let us scrutinize the divine mysteries with that desire to know which both springs from love and in turn inflames love."
Statutes of the Carthusian Order, Book 1, Chapter 5, number 2