Motivational Quotes

Books - reading

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

Best Quotes about Books - reading

Happy is he who has laid up in his youth, and held fast in all fortune, a genuine and passionate love for reading.

Choate, Rufus

Books in a large university library system: 2, 000,000. Books in an average large city library: 1 0,000. Average number of books in a chain bookstore: 30, 000. Books in an average neighborhood branch library: 20, 000.

Horowitz, Lois

Who ever converses among old books will be hard to please among the new.

Temple, Sir William

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

Lee, Harper

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

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book! The book exists for us, perchance, that will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered.

Thoreau, Henry David

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

Parker, Dorothy

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

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

Barstow, Stan

10.

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

Descartes, Rene

11.

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

12.

A house without books is like a room without windows. No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books, if he has the means to buy them. It is a wrong to his family. Children learn to read by being in the presence of books. The love of knowledge comes with reading and grows upon it. And the love of knowledge, in a young mind, is almost always a warrant against the inferior excitement of passions and vices.

Mann, Horace

13.

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

14.

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

Murray, William

15.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

16.

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

17.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

Hugo, Victor

21.

The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just.

Brookner, Anita

22.

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

Auden, W. H.

23.

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

Lytton, Lord Edward

24.

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

Secondat, Charles de

25.

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

Coolio

26.

What gunpowder did for war the printing press has done for the mind.

Phillips, Wendell

27.

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

Howells, William Dean

28.

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

29.

Books succeed, and lives fail.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

30.

A novel points out that the world consists entirely of exceptions.

Carey, Joyce

31.

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.

32.

A multitude of books distracts the mind.

Socrates

33.

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

34.

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

Rohn, Jim

35.

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

36.

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

37.

There is no robber worse than a bad book.

Proverb, Italian

38.

If a book comes from the heart it will contrive to reach other hearts. All art and author craft are of small account to that.

Carlyle, Thomas

39.

Readers are plentiful: thinkers are rare.

Martineau, Harriet

40.

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.

41.

Books are standing counselors and preachers, always at hand, and always disinterested; having this advantage over oral instructors, that they are ready to repeat their lesson as often as we please.

Chambers, Oswald

42.

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

43.

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

44.

Everything you need for better future and success has already been written. And guess what? All you have to do is go to the library.

Rohn, Jim

45.

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

Maclennan, Hugh

46.

You will, I am sure, agree with me that... if page 534 only finds us in the second chapter, the length of the first one must have been really intolerable.

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan

47.

The newest books are those that never grow old.

Jackson, George Holbrook

48.

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

49.

The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.

France, Anatole

50.

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