Stand in the stream and fish. Many preachers are utterly ignorant as to how the bulk of people are living; they are at home among books, but quite at sea among men, What would you think of a botanist who seldom saw real flowers, or an astronomer who never spent the night with the stars? Would they be worthy of the name of men of science? Neither can a minister of the gospel be anything but a mere empiric unless he mingles with men and studies character for himself. Read men as well as books, and love men rather than opinions, or you will be inanimate preachers.

– Charles Spurgeon in Lectures to My Students.