Motivational Quotes

Books - reading

He that loves a book will never want a faithful friend, a wholesome counselor, a cheerful companion, an effectual comforter. By study, by reading, by thinking, one may innocently divert and pleasantly entertain himself, as in all weathers, as in all fortunes.

- Barrow

Best Quotes about Books - reading

A novel must be exceptionally good to live as long as the average cat.

Maclennan, Hugh

A multitude of books distracts the mind.

Socrates

This book is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with great force.

Parker, Dorothy

For a good book has this quality, that it is not merely a petrifaction of its author, but that once it has been tossed behind, like Deucalion's little stone, it acquires a separate and vivid life of its own.

Lejeune, Caroline

I always begin at the left with the opening word of the sentence and read toward the right and I recommend this method.

Thurber, James

There are two kinds of books. Those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read.

Mencken, H. L.

A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.

Auden, W. H.

A good book is the best of friends, the same today and for ever.

Tupper, Martin

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

Ruskin, John

10.

A man ought to read just as his inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

Johnson, Samuel

11.

Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image, but thee who destroys a good book, kills reason itself.

Milton, John

12.

What is a diary as a rule? A document useful to the person who keeps it. Dull to the contemporary who reads it and invaluable to the student, centuries afterwards, who treasures it.

Terry, Helen

13.

In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.

Adler, Mortimer J.

14.

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

15.

'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print; A book's a book, although there's nothing in it.

Byron, Lord

16.

The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.

France, Anatole

17.

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

18.

The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency --the belief that the here and now is all there is.

Bloom, Allan

19.

Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought -- asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation.

Collier, Jeremy

20.

Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, Lighthouses as the poet said erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind, Books are humanity in print.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

21.

I don't think any good book is based on factual experience. Bad books are about things the writer already knew before he wrote them.

Fuentes, Carlos

22.

Books had instant replay long before televised sports.

Williams, Bert

23.

Books are men of higher stature; the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear.

Barrett, E.S.

24.

In any situation, ask yourself: What strengths do I possess that can contribute towards accomplishing something in this situation? Then follow through.

25.

Don't just read the easy stuff. You may be entertained by it, but you will never grow from it.

Rohn, Jim

26.

There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates loot on Treasure Island and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life.

Disney, Walt

27.

I've never know any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage.

Secondat, Charles de

28.

Everywhere I have sought rest and not found it, except sitting in a corner by myself with a little book.

Kempis, Thomas

29.

You are wise, witty and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading this sort of stuff.

Critchfield, Jim

30.

To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

31.

The successful Accelerated Reader is able to read larger than normal blocks or bites of the printed page with each eye stop. He has accepted, without reservation, the philosophy that the most important benefit of reading is the gaining of information, ideas, mental picture and entertainment-not the fretting over words. He has come to the realization that words in and of themselves are for the most part insignificant.

Cutler, Wade E.

32.

When I am dead, I hope it may be said: His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.

Belloc, Hilaire

33.

No furniture is so charming as books.

Smith, Sydney

34.

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

35.

A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public with his pants down.

Millay, Edna St. Vincent

36.

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

Brodsky, Joseph

37.

Except a living man there is nothing more wonderful than a book! a message to us from the dead -- from human souls we never saw, who lived, perhaps, thousands of miles away. And yet these, in those little sheets of paper, speak to us, arouse us, terrify us, teach us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers.

Kingsley, Charles

38.

Does there, I wonder, exist a being who has read all, or approximately all, that the person of average culture is supposed to have read, and that not to have read is a social sin? If such a being does exist, surely he is an old, a very old man.

Bennett, Arnold

39.

Books are not men and yet they stay alive.

Benet, Stephen Vincent

40.

There is creative reading as well as creative writing.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

41.

What is reading, but silent conversation.

Landor, Walter Savage

42.

I used to walk to school with my nose buried in a book.

Coolio

43.

Some books leave us free and some books make us free.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

44.

A good book is the very essence of a good man. His virtues survive in it, while the foibles and faults of his actual life are forgotten. All the goodly company of the excellent and great sit around my table, or look down on me from yonder shelves, waiting patiently to answer my questions and enrich me with their wisdom. A precious book is a foretaste of immortality.

Cuyler, Theodore L.

45.

In science, read by preference the newest works. In literature, read the oldest. The classics are always modern.

Lytton, Lord Edward

46.

After all, the world is not a stage -- not to me: nor a theatre: nor a show-house of any sort. And art, especially novels, are not little theatres where the reader sits aloft and watches... and sighs, commiserates, condones and smiles. That's what you want a book to be: because it leaves you so safe and superior, with your two-dollar ticket to the show. And that's what my books are not and never will be. Whoever reads me will be in the thick of the scrimmage, and if he doesn't like it -- if he wants a safe seat in the audience -- let him read someone else.

Lawrence, D. H.

47.

Thank you for sending me a copy of your book -- I'll waste no time reading it.

Hadas, Moses

48.

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with all the finest men of past centuries.

Descartes, Rene

49.

Old books that have ceased to be of service should no more be abandoned than should old friends who have ceased to give pleasure.

Worsthorne, Sir Peregrine

50.

The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.