Motivational Quotes

Books - reading

My books are water; those of the great geniuses are wine -- everybody drinks water.

- Twain, Mark

Best Quotes about Books - reading

I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.

Asimov, Isaac

A book that is shut is but a block.

Fuller, Thomas

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

Joubert, Joseph

'Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem to be confidences or sides hidden from all else and unmistakably meant for his ear; the profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader; the profound thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until it is discovered by an equal mind and heart.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Prerequisite for rereadability in books: that they be forgettable.

Rostand, Jean

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

A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public with his pants down.

Millay, Edna St. Vincent

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

Reading furnishes the mind only with material for knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.

Locke, John

10.

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

11.

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

12.

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

Secondat, Charles de

13.

When the book comes out it may hurt you -- but in order for me to do it, it had to hurt me first. I can only tell you about yourself as much as I can face about myself.

Baldwin, James

14.

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

Brodsky, Joseph

15.

Read good, big important things.

Noonan, Peggy

16.

The tools I need for my work are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey.

Faulkner, William

17.

After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books.

Carlyle, Thomas

18.

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

19.

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

Carey, Joyce

20.

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

21.

To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any other exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object.

Thoreau, Henry David

22.

Readers are plentiful: thinkers are rare.

Martineau, Harriet

23.

I don't think any good book is based on factual experience. Bad books are about things the writer already knew before he wrote them.

Fuentes, Carlos

24.

Reading the Scriptures is an uplifting experience.

25.

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

26.

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

Coolio

27.

We ought to reverence books; to look on them as useful and mighty things. If they are good and true, whether they are about religion, politics, farming, trade, law, or medicine, they are the message of Christ, the maker of all things -- the teacher of all truth.

Kingsley, Charles

28.

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

Camus, Albert

29.

A book is a part of life, a manifestation of life, just as much as a tree or a horse or a star. It obeys its own rhythms, its own laws, whether it be a novel, a play, or a diary. The deep, hidden rhythm of life is always there -- that of the pulse, the heart beat.

Miller, Henry

30.

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

31.

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.

McKenna, Richard

32.

Hypocrite reader -- my fellow -- my brother!

Baudelaire, Charles

33.

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

34.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

35.

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

36.

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

37.

The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no limit to this fever for writing.

Luther, Martin

38.

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

Parker, Dorothy

39.

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

40.

A library is thought in cold storage.

Samuel, Herbert

41.

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

Morely, John

42.

The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.

Wilde, Oscar

43.

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

44.

Next, in importance to books are their titles.

Davies, Paul

45.

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

46.

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.

47.

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

48.

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

Mcluhan, Marshall

49.

God be thanked for books; they are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages.

Channing, William Ellery

50.

There are people who read too much: bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men are drunk on whiskey or religion. They wander through this most diverting and stimulating of worlds in a haze, seeing nothing and hearing nothing.

Mencken, H. L.