Motivational Quotes

Books - reading

I read the newspaper avidly. It is my one form of continuous fiction.

- Bevan, Aneurin

Best Quotes about Books - reading

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.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

Books give not wisdom where none was before. But where some is, there reading makes it more.

Harington, John

The novel can't compete with cars, the movies, television, and liquor. A guy who's had a good feed and tanked up on good wine gives his old lady a kiss after supper and his day is over. Finished.

Celine, Louis-Ferdinand

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

Gibbon, Edward

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

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

When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story's voice makes everything its own.

Berger, John

A novel is never anything, but a philosophy put into images.

Camus, Albert

10.

A dose of poison can do its work but once. A bad book can go on poisoning minds for generations.

Murray, William

11.

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

Butler, Samuel

12.

People are much more willing to lend you books than bookcases.

Twain, Mark

13.

When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.

Erasmus, Desiderius

14.

A conventional good read is usually a bad read, a relaxing bath in what we know already. A true good read is surely an act of innovative creation in which we, the readers, become conspirators.

Bradbury, Malcolm

15.

Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends, too, we should return to them again and again for, like true friends, they will never fail us -- never cease to instruct -- never cloy.

Colton, Charles Caleb

16.

Readers are plentiful: thinkers are rare.

Martineau, Harriet

17.

The books one has written in the past have two surprises in store: one couldn't write them again, and wouldn't want to.

Rostand, Jean

18.

To use books rightly, is to go to them for help; to appeal to them when our own knowledge and power fail; to be led by them into wider sight and purer conception than our own, and to receive from them the united sentence of the judges and councils of all time, against our solitary and unstable opinions.

Ruskin, John

19.

The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything.

Whitman, Walt

20.

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

Morely, John

21.

It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life.

Hugo, Victor

22.

I can't bear art that you can walk round and admire. A book should be either a bandit or a rebel or a man in the crowd.

Lawrence, D. H.

23.

A book that is shut is but a block.

Fuller, Thomas

24.

It is books that teach us to refine our pleasures when young, and to recall them with satisfaction when we are old.

Hunt, Leigh

25.

Read as you taste fruit or savor wine, or enjoy friendship, love or life.

Jackson, Holbrook

26.

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

Barrett, E.S.

27.

A book might be written on the injustice of the just.

Hope, Anthony

28.

Very young children eat their books, literally devouring their contents. This is one reason for the scarcity of first editions of Alice in Wonderland and other favorites of the nursery.

Rosenbach, A. S. W.

29.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

30.

Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method. Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.

Benjamin, Walter

31.

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

Milton, John

32.

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

Descartes, Rene

33.

Most books, like their authors, are born to die; of only a few books can it be said that death has no dominion over them; they live, and their influence lives forever.

Swartz, J.

34.

Some of the most famous books are the least worth reading. Their fame was due to their having done something that needed to be doing in their day. The work is done and the virtue of the book has expired.

Morely, John

35.

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

Maclennan, Hugh

36.

To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry.

Bachelard, Gaston

37.

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

Ruskin, John

38.

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

39.

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.

Lee, Harper

40.

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.

41.

You can either read something many times in order to be assured that you got it all, or else you can define your purpose and use techniques which will assure that you have met it and gotten what you need.

Kump, Peter

42.

To read too many books is harmful.

Zedong, Mao

43.

One sheds one's sicknesses in books -- repeats and presents again one's emotions, to be master of them.

Lawrence, D. H.

44.

Surviving and thriving as a professional today demands two new approaches to the written word. First, it requires a new approach to orchestrating information, by skillfully choosing what to read and what to ignore. Second, it requires a new approach to integrating information, by reading faster and with greater comprehension.

Calano, Jimmy

45.

The books one reads in childhood, and perhaps most of all the bad and good bad books, create in one's mind a sort of false map of the world, a series of fabulous countries into which one can retreat at odd moments throughout the rest of life, and which in some cases can survive a visit to the real countries which they are supposed to represent.

Orwell, George

46.

Read, read, read. Read everything-- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window.

Faulkner, William

47.

I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all.

Maugham, W. Somerset

48.

You've really got to start hitting the books because it's no joke out here.

Lee, Spike

49.

What we become depends on what we read after all the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is the collection of books.

Carlyle, Thomas

50.

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