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books quotes about reading

English (34)

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“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.” Francis Bacon, The Essays of Francis Bacon
“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.” Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
“If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books to read.” Carl Sagan, Cosmos
“Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me from mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.” William Shakespeare, The Tempest
“Books are like imprisoned souls until some one takes them down from a shelf and reads them.” Samuel Butler, The Note-Books of Samuel Butler
“books are a uniquely portable magic.” Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
“What can we see or acquire, but what we are? You have observed a skilful man reading Virgil. Well, that author is a thousand books to a thousand persons. Take the book into your two hands, and read your eyes out; you will never find what I find.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, Spiritual Laws
“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
“He loved books; books are cold but safe friends.” Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“Back to culture. Yes, actually to culture. You can't consume much if you sit still and read books.” Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
“What refuge is there for the victim who is oppressed with the feeling that there are a thousand new books he ought to read, while life is only long enough for him to attempt to read a hundred?” Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Over the Teacups
“For six months, then, Emma, at fifteen years of age, made her hands dirty with books from old lending libraries.” Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
“When I look at my room, I see a girl who loves books.” John Green, Looking for Alaska
“He longed for the little cabin and the sun-kissed sea—for the cool interior of the well-built house, and for the never-ending wonders of the many books.” Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes
“From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books.” Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
“I seek, in the reading of books, only to please myself by an honest diversion; or, if I study, 'tis for no other science than what treats of the knowledge of myself, and instructs me how to die and how to live well.” Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne
“We are not such fools as to pay for reading inferior books, when we can read superior books for nothing.” Edward Bulwer-Lytton, The Coming Race
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
“My hours of leisure I spent in reading the best authors, ancient and modern, being always provided with a good number of books; and when I was ashore, in observing the manners and dispositions of the people, as well as learning their language;...” Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
“The best books . . . are those that tell you what you know already.” George Orwell, 1984
“Her reputation of reading a great deal hung about her like the cloudy envelope of a goddess in an epic; it was supposed to engender difficult questions and to keep the conversation at a low temperature.” Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
“Books, for me, used to be a way to escape. I now consider reading a good book a sacred indulgence, a chance to be any place I choose. It is my absolute favorite way to spend time.” Oprah Winfrey, What I Know For Sure
“He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often returned with two.” Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“You can do as you please, but I shall keep my book on the table here and read a little every morning as soon as I wake, for I know it will do me good and help me through the day.” Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
“People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book.” Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X
“The reader, the booklover, must meet his own needs without paying too much attention to what his neighbors say those needs should be.” Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt; an Autobiography

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reading book library bookshelves quality bookstore learning education writing life mind friendship libraries culture magic knowledge love wisdom death change

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Carl Sagan (5)
Haruki Murakami (5)
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Umberto Eco (2)
George R. R. Martin (2)
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C. S. Lewis (2)
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Related sources

Fahrenheit 451 (6)
The Name of the Rose (2)
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (2)
Cosmos (5)
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (3)
On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History (3)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (2)
Moby-Dick (2)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (2)
The Fault in Our Stars (2)
Norwegian Wood (2)
Sputnik Sweetheart (2)
Theodore Roosevelt; an Autobiography (2)
Les Misérables (2)
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1)
A Dance with Dragons (1)
The Tempest (1)
A Game of Thrones (1)
Brave New World (1)
The Essays of Francis Bacon (1)

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Reading quotes about books