Motivational Quotes

Books - reading

Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes.

- Gibbon, Edward

Best Quotes about Books - reading

A multitude of books distracts the mind.

Socrates

Books are divided into two classes, the books of the hour and the books of all time.

Ruskin, John

When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before.

Fadiman, Clifton

Books had instant replay long before televised sports.

Williams, Bert

Most books today seemed to have been written overnight from books read the day before.

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

You will, I am sure, agree with me that... if page 534 only finds us in the second chapter, the length of the first one must have been really intolerable.

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan

As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent; whence must necessarily arise a desire of attaining knowledge with the greatest possible ease.

Goldsmith, Oliver

The newest books are those that never grow old.

Jackson, George Holbrook

Old books, you know well, are books of the world's youth, and new books are the fruits of its age.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

10.

Everything in the world exists to end up in a book.

Mallarme, Stephane

11.

The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no limit to this fever for writing.

Luther, Martin

12.

Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time.

Whipple, Edwin P.

13.

The best effect of any book, is that it excites the reader to self-activity.

Carlyle, Thomas

14.

The book salesman should be honored because he brings to our attention, as a rule, the very books we need most and neglect most.

Crane, Frank

15.

I heard his library burned down and both books were destroyed -- and one of them hadn't even been colored in yet.

Dawkins, John

16.

Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes.

Gibbon, Edward

17.

I wish I could write a beautiful book to break those hearts that are soon to cease to exist: a book of faith and small neat worlds and of people who live by the philosophies of popular songs.

18.

Books to judicious compilers, are useful; to particular arts and professions, they are absolutely necessary; to men of real science, they are tools: but more are tools to them.

Johnson

19.

Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life.

Seferis, Giorgos

20.

Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of with one's own.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

21.

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

Adler, Mortimer J.

22.

A wicked book cannot repent.

Proverb

23.

The reading or non-reading a book will never keep down a single petticoat.

Byron, Lord

24.

Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading, an easy prey to sensations and cheap appeals.

Trevelyan, G. M.

25.

This will never be a civilized country until we expend more money for books than we do for chewing gum.

Hubbard, Elbert

26.

If a book comes from the heart it will contrive to reach other hearts. All art and author craft are of small account to that.

Carlyle, Thomas

27.

In the dark colony of night, when I consider man's magnificent capacity for malice, madness, folly, envy, rage, and destructiveness, and I wonder whether we shall not end up as breakfast for newts and polyps, I seem to hear the muffled cries of all the words in all the books with covers closed.

Rosten, Leo

28.

A book is a mirror: If an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to look out.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

29.

Until it is kindled by a spirit as flamingly alive as the one which gave it birth a book is dead to us. Words divested of their magic are but dead hieroglyphs.

Miller, Henry

30.

Read nothing that you do not care to remember, and remember nothing you do not mean to use.

Blackie, Professor

31.

The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.

Forster, Edward M.

32.

The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man nothing else that he builds ever lasts monuments fall; nations perish; civilization grow old and die out; new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again and yet live on. Still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men's hearts, of the hearts of men centuries dead.

Day, Clarence

33.

The good of a book lies in its being read. A book is made up of signs that speak of other signs, which in their turn speak of things. Without an eye to read them, a book contains signs that produce no concepts; therefore it is dumb.

Eco, Umberto

34.

He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.

Aubrey, John

35.

'Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem to be confidences or sides hidden from all else and unmistakably meant for his ear; the profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader; the profound thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until it is discovered by an equal mind and heart.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

36.

One always tends to overpraise a long book, because one has got through it.

Forster, Edward M.

37.

A bad book is the worse that it cannot repent. It has not been the devil's policy to keep the masses of mankind in ignorance; but finding that they will read, he is doing all in his power to poison their books.

Kirk, E.N.

38.

The book you don't read won't help.

Rohn, Jim

39.

My books kept me from the ring, the dog-pit, the tavern, and the saloon.

Hood, Thomas

40.

Americans will listen, but they do not care to read. War and Peace must wait for the leisure of retirement, which never really comes: meanwhile it helps to furnish the living room. Blockbusting fiction is bought as furniture. Unread, it maintains its value. Read, it looks like money wasted. Cunningly, Americans know that books contain a person, and they want the person, not the book.

Burgess, Anthony

41.

In science read the newest works, in literature read the oldest.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.

42.

Every abridgement of a good book is a fool abridged.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

43.

A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.

Fuller, Margaret

44.

The pleasure of reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books.

Mansfield, Katherine

45.

The constant habit of perusing devout books is so indispensable, that it has been termed the oil of the lamp of prayer. Too much reading, however, and too little meditation, may produce the effect of a lamp inverted; which is extinguished by the very excess of that ailment, whose property is to feed it.

More, Hannah

46.

A good title is the title of a successful book.

Chandler, Raymond

47.

I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little further down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.

Forster, Edward M.

48.

You will find most books worth reading are worth reading twice.

Morely, John

49.

Books are the best of things if well used; if abused, among the worst. They are good for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

50.

Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.

Johnson, Samuel