Motivational Quotes

Books - reading

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

- Schopenhauer, Arthur

Best Quotes about Books - reading

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

An empty book is like an infant's soul, in which anything may be written. It is capable of all things, but containeth nothing. I have a mind to fill this with profitable wonders.

Traherne, Thomas

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

Adler, Mortimer J.

The newest books are those that never grow old.

Jackson, George Holbrook

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

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.

You will be the same person in five as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.

Jones, Charles ''Tremendous''

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

Lowell, James Russell

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

Parker, Dorothy

10.

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

Gibbon, Edward

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

15.

Hypocrite reader -- my fellow -- my brother!

Baudelaire, Charles

16.

To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.

Hugo, Victor

17.

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

Hugo, Victor

18.

Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading, an easy prey to sensations and cheap appeals.

Trevelyan, G. M.

19.

The Bible remained for me a book of books, still divine -- but divine in the sense that all great books are divine which teach men how to live righteously.

Keith, Sir Arthur

20.

We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over and actually read a volume of four or five hundred pages.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

21.

Begin to read a book that will help you move toward your dream.

Brown, Les

22.

The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.

Forster, Edward M.

23.

Everything in this book may be wrong. [The Savior's Manual]

Bach, Richard

24.

Books, books, books had found the secret of a garret-room piled high with cases in my father's name; Piled high, packed large, --where, creeping in and out among the giant fossils of my past, like some small nimble mouse between the ribs of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there at this or that box, pulling through the gap, in heats of terror, haste, victorious joy, the first book first. And how I felt it beat under my pillow, in the morning's dark. An hour before the sun would let me read! My books!

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

25.

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

26.

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

Hunt, Leigh

27.

The most foolish kind of a book is a kind of leaky boat on the sea of wisdom; some of the wisdom will get in anyhow.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

28.

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

Wycherley, William

29.

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

30.

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

31.

Books are not men and yet they stay alive.

Benet, Stephen Vincent

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Camus, Albert

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

38.

Most books today seemed to have been written overnight from books read the day before.

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

39.

A book is like a man -- clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun.

Steinbeck, John

40.

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

41.

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

Forster, Edward M.

42.

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

Milton, John

43.

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.

44.

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

45.

A good book, in the language of the book-sellers, is a salable one; in that of the curious, a scarce one; in that of men of sense, a useful and instructive one.

Chambers, Oswald

46.

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

47.

The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.

Guin, Ursula K. Le

48.

The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.

Dane, Frank

49.

Here, my dear Lucy, hide these books. Quick, quick! Fling Peregrine Pickle under the toilette --throw Roderick Random into the closet --put The Innocent Adultery into The Whole Duty of Man; thrust Lord Aimworth under the sofa! cram Ovid behind the bolster; there --put The Man of Feeling into your pocket. Now for them.

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

50.

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

Maugham, W. Somerset