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By reading a man does as it were antedate his life, and makes himself…

Quote byJeremy Collier · 1650–1726

Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Miscellanies upon Moral Subjects (1685), "Of the Entertainment of Books", pp. 92–93.

English (original)

By reading a man does as it were antedate his life, and makes himself contemporary with the ages past. And this way of running up beyond one's nativity is much better than Plato's pre-existence, because here a man knows something of the state, and is the wiser for it, which he is not in the other.

— Jeremy Collier

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