Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason. They made no such demand upon those who wrote them.

Charles Caleb Colton (1780–1832), an English cleric-turned-writer, became best known for his epigrammatic observations on morals, society, and letters. This remark belongs to the tradition of early nineteenth-century literary aphorisms that judged books by the intellectual labor behind them. Colton published many such pointed maxims in his collection of “Laconics,” a work that circulated widely in Britain and America and was frequently excerpted in newspapers and commonplace books. The line reflects a period when print culture was expanding rapidly and critics worried that the growing market encouraged facile, formulaic writing that asked little of either author or reader.

Colton draws a sharp link between the effort of writing and the effort of reading: a book that demands no thought from its audience likely originated in an author’s own lack of thought. The epigram is less a blanket condemnation of accessibility than a critique of intellectual laziness—writing that merely fills pages, repeats clichés, or flatters prevailing tastes. Implicitly, he proposes a standard for literature: the reader’s engagement is earned by the writer’s prior rigor, originality, and reflective depth. The saying also functions as advice to readers (be wary of effortless consumption) and to writers (serious work should impose a discipline on its maker before it can profitably challenge others).