Motivational Quotes

Books - reading

Somewhere, everywhere, now hidden, now apparent in what ever is written down, is the form of a human being. If we seek to know him, are we idly occupied?

- Woolf, Virginia

Best Quotes about Books - reading

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

Carey, Joyce

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

A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razor strap. A thin book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.

Twain, Mark

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

No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.

Eliot, George

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

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

Books succeed, and lives fail.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

The Brahmins say that in their books there are many predictions of times in which it will rain. But press those books as strongly as you can, you can not get out of them a drop of water. So you can not get out of all the books that contain the best precepts the smallest good deed.

Tolstoy, Count Leo

10.

In science read the newest works, in literature read the oldest.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.

11.

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

12.

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

Hadas, Moses

13.

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

Temple, Sir William

14.

The reading or non-reading a book will never keep down a single petticoat.

Byron, Lord

15.

The reason a writer writes a book is to forget a book and the reason a reader reads one is to remember it.

Wolfe, Thomas

16.

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

Faulkner, William

17.

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

18.

Read good, big important things.

Noonan, Peggy

19.

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

20.

He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.

Aubrey, John

21.

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

22.

A multitude of books distracts the mind.

Socrates

23.

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

Rohn, Jim

24.

In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.

Adler, Mortimer J.

25.

When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.

Erasmus, Desiderius

26.

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

27.

Everything in the world exists to end up in a book.

Mallarme, Stephane

28.

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

29.

One half who graduate from college never read another book.

True, Herbert

30.

The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man nothing else that he builds ever lasts monuments fall; nations perish; civilization grow old and die out; new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again and yet live on. Still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men's hearts, of the hearts of men centuries dead.

Day, Clarence

31.

One sheds one's sicknesses in books -- repeats and presents again one's emotions, to be master of them.

Lawrence, D. H.

32.

Read nothing that you do not care to remember, and remember nothing you do not mean to use.

Blackie, Professor

33.

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

Bevan, Aneurin

34.

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

Parker, Dorothy

35.

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

Brodsky, Joseph

36.

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

37.

The printing press is either the greatest blessing or the greatest curse of modern times, sometimes one forgets which it is.

Barrie, Sir James M.

38.

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

39.

If I had my way books would not be written in English, but in an exceedingly difficult secret language that only skilled professional readers and story-tellers could interpret. Then people like you would have to go to public halls and pay good prices to hear the professionals decode and read the books aloud for you. This plan would have the advantage of scaring off all amateur authors, retired politicians, country doctors and I-Married-a-Midget writers who would not have the patience to learn the secret language.

Davies, Robertson

40.

Books give not wisdom where none was before. But where some is, there reading makes it more.

Harington, John

41.

The successful Accelerated Reader is able to read larger than normal blocks or bites of the printed page with each eye stop. He has accepted, without reservation, the philosophy that the most important benefit of reading is the gaining of information, ideas, mental picture and entertainment-not the fretting over words. He has come to the realization that words in and of themselves are for the most part insignificant.

Cutler, Wade E.

42.

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

Lytton, Lord Edward

43.

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

Morely, John

44.

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

Maugham, W. Somerset

45.

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

46.

You can either read something many times in order to be assured that you got it all, or else you can define your purpose and use techniques which will assure that you have met it and gotten what you need.

Kump, Peter

47.

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

48.

The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency --the belief that the here and now is all there is.

Bloom, Allan

49.

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

Asimov, Isaac

50.

What is reading, but silent conversation.