Motivational Quotes

Books - reading

Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time.

- Whipple, Edwin P.

Best Quotes about Books - reading

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

Forster, Edward M.

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.

The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.

France, Anatole

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.

Frost, Robert

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 the Scriptures is an uplifting experience.

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

The best effect of any book, is that it excites the reader to self-activity.

Carlyle, Thomas

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

10.

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

Wycherley, William

11.

Beware of the person of one book.

Aquinas, St. Thomas

12.

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

Barstow, Stan

13.

One half who graduate from college never read another book.

True, Herbert

14.

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

15.

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

Faulkner, William

16.

The more sins you confess, the more books you will sell.

Proverb, American

17.

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

18.

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

Lee, Harper

19.

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

20.

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

21.

She could give herself up to the written word as naturally as a good dancer to music or a fine swimmer to water. The only difficulty was that after finishing the last sentence she was left with a feeling at once hollow and uncomfortably full. Exactly like indigestion.

Rhys, Jean

22.

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

23.

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

24.

What is reading, but silent conversation.

Landor, Walter Savage

25.

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

Coolio

26.

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

27.

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

Wilde, Oscar

28.

The newest books are those that never grow old.

Jackson, George Holbrook

29.

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

30.

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

Twain, Mark

31.

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

Hadas, Moses

32.

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

Milton, John

33.

My books kept me from the ring, the dog-pit, the tavern, and the saloon.

Hood, Thomas

34.

Read, read, read. Read everything-- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window.

Faulkner, William

35.

Read Homer once, and you can read no more. For all books else appear so mean, and so poor. Verse will seem prose; but still persist to read, and Homer will be all the books you need.

Buckingham, Duke of

36.

I read the newspaper avidly. It is my one form of continuous fiction.

Bevan, Aneurin

37.

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

Locke, John

38.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

39.

Books are the blessed chloroform of the mind.

Chambers, Robert

40.

Early in the morning, at break of day, in all the freshness and dawn of one's strength, to read a book --I call that vicious!

Nietzsche, Friedrich

41.

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

Ruskin, John

42.

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

Byron, Lord

43.

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

Morely, John

44.

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

45.

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

46.

A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.

Fuller, Margaret

47.

A library is thought in cold storage.

Samuel, Herbert

48.

As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent; whence must necessarily arise a desire of attaining knowledge with the greatest possible ease.

Goldsmith, Oliver

49.

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

50.

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

Asimov, Isaac