The wise man reads both books and life itself.

The line contrasts two complementary “texts” from which a person can learn: written books and lived experience. It suggests that wisdom is not produced by study alone (which can become abstract or secondhand), nor by experience alone (which can be narrow or unreflective). The “wise man” integrates both—reading widely to gain perspective, language, and inherited insight, while also “reading” life by observing people, testing ideas in practice, and learning from consequences. The aphorism also implies an active, interpretive stance toward everyday events: life is something to be examined and understood, not merely endured.