Motivational Quotes

Books - reading

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

Best Quotes about Books - reading

Tradition is but a meteor, which, if it once falls, cannot be rekindled. Memory, once interrupted, is not to be recalled. But written learning is a fixed luminary, which, after the cloud that had hidden it has passed away, is again bright in its proper station. So books are faithful repositories, which may be awhile neglected or forgotten, but when opened again, will again impart instruction.

Johnson

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

Hubbard, Elbert

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

Auden, W. H.

The worst readers are those who behave like plundering troops: they take away a few things they can use, dirty and confound the remainder, and revile the whole.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

Coolio

What is important is not to be able to read rapidly, but to be able to decide what not to read.

Mccay, James T.

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.

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

Hunt, Leigh

There was a time when the world acted on books; now books act on the world.

Joubert, Joseph

10.

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

11.

Our high respect for a well read person is praise enough for literature.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

12.

Once we have learned to read, meaning of words can somehow register without consciousness.

Marcel, Anthony

13.

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

14.

Books are masters who instruct us without rods or ferules, without words or anger, without bread or money. If you approach them, they are not asleep; if you seek them, they do not hide; if you blunder, they do not scold; if you are ignorant, they do not laugh at you.

Bury, Richard De

15.

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

Butler, Samuel

16.

I divide all readers into two classes: those who read to remember and those who read to forget.

Phelps, William Lyon

17.

How can you dare teach a man to read until you've taught him everything else first?

Shaw, George Bernard

18.

There is a set of religious, or rather moral, writings which teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery in this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true.

Fielding, Henry

19.

No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor is any pleasure so lasting.

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley

20.

When a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and manly thoughts, seek for no other test of its excellence. It is good, and made by a good workman.

Bruyere, Jean De La

21.

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

22.

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

Dawkins, John

23.

A book may be compared to your neighbor: if it be good, it cannot last too long; if bad, you cannot get rid of it too early.

Brooke, Rupert

24.

Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.

Fusselman, W.

25.

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

26.

A person of mature years and ripe development, who is expecting nothing from literature but the corroboration and renewal of past ideas, may find satisfaction in a lucidity so complete as to occasion no imaginative excitement, but young and ambitious students are not content with it. They seek the excitement because they are capable of the growth that it accompanies.

Cooley, Charles Horton

27.

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

28.

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

29.

Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine; they are the life, the soul of reading! Take them out of this book, for instance, --you might as well take the book along with them; --one cold external winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer; --he steps forth like a bridegroom, --bids All-hail; brings in variety, and forbids the appetite to fail.

Sterne, Laurence

30.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

31.

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

Forster, Edward M.

32.

With one day's reading a man may have the key in his hands.

Pound, Ezra

33.

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

Byron, Lord

34.

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

Morely, John

35.

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

36.

The mortality of all inanimate things is terrible to me, but that of books most of all.

Howells, William Dean

37.

Thy books should, like thy friends, not many be, yet such wherein men may thy judgment see.

Wycherley, William

38.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. It is wholesome and bracing for the mind to have its faculties kept on the stretch.

Steele, Sir Richard

39.

Reading the Scriptures is an uplifting experience.

40.

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

Twain, Mark

41.

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

Milton, John

42.

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

Rohn, Jim

43.

Prerequisite for rereadability in books: that they be forgettable.

Rostand, Jean

44.

The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.

Lincoln, Abraham

45.

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

46.

Then I though of reading -- the nice and subtle happiness of reading ... this joy not dulled by age, this polite and unpunishable vice, this selfish, serene, lifelong intoxication.

Smith, Logan Pearsall

47.

The world may be full of fourth-rate writers but it's also full of fourth-rate readers.

Barstow, Stan

48.

Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.

Colton, Charles Caleb

49.

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

50.

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