Quotes about books - reading

"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 on books - reading   

"The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts."

Holmes, Oliver Wendell on books - reading
3 fans of this quote   

"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 on books - reading   

"Be as careful of the books you read, as of the company you keep; for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as by the latter."

Hood, Paxton on books - reading   

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

Hood, Thomas on books - reading   

"A book might be written on the injustice of the just."

Hope, Anthony on books - reading   

"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 on books - reading   

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

Howells, William Dean on books - reading   

"This will never be a civilized country until we expend more money for books than we do for chewing gum."

Hubbard, Elbert on books - reading   

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

Hugo, Victor on books - reading
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"It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life."

Hugo, Victor on books - reading   

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

Hunt, Leigh on books - reading   

"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 on books - reading   

"Books are the money of Literature, but only the counters of Science."

Huxley, Thomas H. on books - reading   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"The newest books are those that never grow old."

Jackson, George Holbrook on books - reading   

"Read as you taste fruit or savor wine, or enjoy friendship, love or life."

Jackson, Holbrook on books - reading   

"The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting."

James, Henry on books - reading   

"I cannot live without books."

Jefferson, Thomas on books - reading
6 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital."

Jefferson, Thomas on books - reading   

"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 on books - reading   

"Books to judicious compilers, are useful; to particular arts and professions, they are absolutely necessary; to men of real science, they are tools: but more are tools to them."

Johnson on books - reading   

"What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure."

Johnson, Samuel on books - reading   

"Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all."

Johnson, Samuel on 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 on books - reading
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"Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen."

Joineriana on books - reading
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"You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read."

Jones, Charles ''Tremendous'' on books - reading
4 fans of this quote   

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

Joubert, Joseph on books - reading
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"The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones."

Joubert, Joseph on books - reading   

"One man is as good as another until he has written a book."

Jowett, Benjamin on books - reading   

"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 on books - reading   

"Everywhere I have sought rest and not found it, except sitting in a corner by myself with a little book."

Kempis, Thomas on books - reading
3 fans of this quote   

"To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations -- such is pleasure beyond compare."

Kenko, Yoshida on books - reading   

"I am a part of everything that I have read."

Kieran, John on books - reading
3 fans of this quote   

"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 on books - reading   

"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 on books - reading   

"A bad book is the worse that it cannot repent. It has not been the devil's policy to keep the masses of mankind in ignorance; but finding that they will read, he is doing all in his power to poison their books."

Kirk, E.N. on books - reading   

"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 on books - reading   

"He has left off reading altogether, to the great improvement of his originality."

Lamb, Charles on books - reading   

"Borrowers of books --those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes."

Lamb, Charles on books - reading   

"I love to lose myself in other men's minds. When I am not walking, I am reading. I cannot sit and think; books think for me."

Lamb, Charles on books - reading