Motivational Quotes

Books - reading

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

Best Quotes about Books - reading

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

Prerequisite for rereadability in books: that they be forgettable.

Rostand, Jean

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

Byron, Lord

To read too many books is harmful.

Zedong, Mao

A successful book cannot afford to be more than ten percent new.

Mcluhan, Marshall

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

Every abridgement of a good book is a fool abridged.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.

Disney, Walt

Reading the Scriptures is an uplifting experience.

10.

I feel like I'm drowning. Every night, I'm carrying home loads of things to read but I'm too exhausted. I keep clipping things and Xeroxing them and planning to read them eventually, but I just end up throwing it all away and feeling guilty.

Levine, Ghita

11.

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

Hadas, Moses

12.

The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring

Chappell, Warren

13.

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

Whitman, Walt

14.

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

15.

Next, in importance to books are their titles.

Davies, Paul

16.

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

Barrett, E.S.

17.

One half who graduate from college never read another book.

True, Herbert

18.

The books we read should be chosen with great care, that they may be, as an Egyptian king wrote over his library, The medicines of the soul.

Hood, Paxton

19.

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.

20.

Books are the blessed chloroform of the mind.

Chambers, Robert

21.

A book worth reading is worth buying.

Ruskin, John

22.

No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.

Townsend, Atwood H.

23.

I know every book of mine by its smell, and I have but to put my nose between the pages to be reminded of all sorts of things.

Gissing, George Robert

24.

The age of the book is almost gone.

Steiner, George

25.

It does not follow because many books are written by persons born in America that there exists an American literature. Books which imitate or represent the thoughts and life of Europe do not constitute an American literature. Before such can exist, an original idea must animate this nation and fresh currents of life must call into life fresh thoughts along the shore.

Fuller, Margaret

26.

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

Forster, Edward M.

27.

Those who do not read are no better off than those who cannot read.

28.

The books we think we ought to read are poky, dull, and dry; The books that we would like to read we are ashamed to buy; The books that people talk about we never can recall; And the books that people give us, oh, they're the worst of all.

Wells, Carolyn

29.

There is no robber worse than a bad book.

Proverb, Italian

30.

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

Butler, Samuel

31.

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

Dawkins, John

32.

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

33.

A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author's soul.

Huxley, Aldous

34.

Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.

Lowell, James Russell

35.

Every man is a volume if you know how to read him.

Channing, William Ellery

36.

Books and marriage go ill together.

Moliere

37.

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

Harington, John

38.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

39.

We should be as careful of the books we read, as of the company we keep. The dead very often have more power than the living.

Edwards, Tryon

40.

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

Secondat, Charles de

41.

You should read books like you take medicine, by advice, and not by advertisement.

Ruskin, John

42.

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

Mallarme, Stephane

43.

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

44.

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

45.

This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty... what you will. I am going to sing for you, a little off key perhaps, but I will sing.

Miller, Henry

46.

All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality -- the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.

Benson, Arthur Christopher

47.

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.

48.

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

49.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

50.

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

Morely, John