Quotes about books - reading

"Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life."

Stevenson, Robert Louis on books - reading
3 fans of this quote   

"Why pay a dollar for a bookmark? Why not use the dollar for a bookmark?"

Stoller, Fred on books - reading   

"A great book should leave you with many experiences and slightly exhausted at the end. You should live several lives while reading it."

Styron, William on books - reading   

"Most books, like their authors, are born to die; of only a few books can it be said that death has no dominion over them; they live, and their influence lives forever."

Swartz, J. on books - reading
4 fans of this quote   

"Books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of the ages through which they have passed"

Temple, Sir William on books - reading   

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

Temple, Sir William on books - reading
3 fans of this quote   

"What is a diary as a rule? A document useful to the person who keeps it. Dull to the contemporary who reads it and invaluable to the student, centuries afterwards, who treasures it."

Terry, Helen on books - reading   

"If a secret history of books could be written, and the author's private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!"

Thackeray, William M. on books - reading   

"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 on books - reading   

"Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all."

Thoreau, Henry David on books - reading
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"Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written."

Thoreau, Henry David on books - reading
3 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institution --such call I good books."

Thoreau, Henry David on books - reading   

"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 on books - reading   

"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 on books - reading   

"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 on books - reading   

"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. on books - reading
3 fans of this quote   

"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 on books - reading   

"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. on books - reading
7 fans of this quote   

"Book love... is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for His creatures."

Trollope, Anthony on books - reading   

"One half who graduate from college never read another book."

True, Herbert on books - reading   

"There are books so alive that you're always afraid that while you weren't reading, the book has gone and changed, has shifted like a river; while you went on living, it went on living too, and like a river moved on and moved away. No one has stepped twice into the same river. But did anyone ever step twice into the same book?"

Tsvetaeva, Marina on books - reading
6 fans of this quote   

"A good book is the best of friends, the same today and for ever."

Tupper, Martin on books - reading
4 fans of this quote   

"A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read."

Twain, Mark on books - reading
5 fans of this quote   

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

Twain, Mark on books - reading   

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

Twain, Mark on books - reading
7 fans of this quote   

"The man who does not read books has no advantage over the man that can not read them."

Twain, Mark on books - reading
17 fans of this quote   

"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 on books - reading   

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

Unknown, Source on books - reading
5 fans of this quote   

"Reading the Scriptures is an uplifting experience."

Unknown, Source on books - reading   

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

Unknown, Source on books - reading   

"I wish I could write a beautiful book to break those hearts that are soon to cease to exist: a book of faith and small neat worlds and of people who live by the philosophies of popular songs."

Unknown, Source on books - reading
3 fans of this quote   

"Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own."

Vaneigem, Raoul on books - reading
3 fans of this quote   

"All the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books."

Voltaire on books - reading   

"It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books."

Voltaire on books - reading   

"The books we think we ought to read are poky, dull, and dry; The books that we would like to read we are ashamed to buy; The books that people talk about we never can recall; And the books that people give us, oh, they're the worst of all."

Wells, Carolyn on books - reading
4 fans of this quote   

"Beware you be not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge."

Wesley, John on books - reading
7 fans of this quote   

"Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures."

West, Jessamyn on books - reading   

"Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time."

Whipple, Edwin P. on books - reading
5 fans of this quote   

"Camerado! This is no book; who touches this touches a man."

Whitman, Walt on books - reading   

"The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything."

Whitman, Walt on books - reading