Motivational Quotes

Books

Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought.

- Sir Arthur Helps

Best Quotes about Books

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

Logan Pearsall Smith

Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought.

Sir Arthur Helps

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

G. K. Chesterton

The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.

Groucho Marx

Oh for a book and a shady nook...

John Wilson

Live always in the best company when you read.

Sydney Smith

Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.

W. H. Auden

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.

G. K. Chesterton

10.

This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.

William Goldman

11.

When I step into this library, I cannot understand why I ever step out of it.

Marie de Sevigne

12.

Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.

William Shakespeare

13.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.

Sir Francis Bacon

14.

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

Groucho Marx

15.

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

16.

Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you.

Harold Bloom

17.

I've never known any trouble that an hour's reading didn't assuage.

Charles De Secondat

18.

Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.

Ezra Pound

19.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

Mark Twain

20.

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.

Groucho Marx

21.

There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love.

Christopher Morley

22.

To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.

Robertson Davies

23.

You can cover a great deal of country in books.

Andrew Lang

24.

Don't join the book burners. Don't think you're going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book...

Dwight D. Eisenhower

25.

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

Robertson Davies

26.

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.

Voltaire

27.

This paperback is very interesting, but I find it will never replace a hardcover book - it makes a very poor doorstop.

Alfred Hitchcock

28.

In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

29.

Books...are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with'em, then we grow out of'em and leave'em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development.

Dorothy L. Sayers

30.

Most new books are forgotten within a year, especially by those who borrow them.

Evan Esar

31.

Books to the ceiling, Books to the sky, My pile of books is a mile high. How I love them! How I need them! I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.

Arnold Lobel

32.

There's a certain kind of conversation you have from time to time at parties in New York about a new book. The word "banal" sometimes rears its by-now banal head; you say "underedited," I say "derivative." The conversation goes around and around various literary criticisms, and by the time it moves on one thing is clear: No one read the book; we just read the reviews.

Anna Quindlen

33.

When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.

W. Somerset Maugham

34.

Read at least one book a month. This is self-serving, obviously. It's a proven fact that people who read buy more books than people who don't read. In truth, I wish you'd read ten books a month, or at least buy that many.

Randy Pausch

35.

Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year.

Horace Mann

36.

I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.

Jane Austen

37.

A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.

Salman Rushdie

38.

The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting.

Henry James

39.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

Sir Richard Steele

40.

Fahrenheit 451 is one of those books that is about how amazing books are and how amazing the people who write books are. Writers love writing books like this, and for some reason, we let them get away with it.

Josh Lieb

41.

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.

Charles W. Eliot

42.

Woe be to him that reads but one book.

George Herbert

43.

I read part of it all the way through.

Samuel Goldwyn

44.

Do give books - religious or otherwise - for Christmas. They're never fattening, seldom sinful, and permanently personal.