A book that is shut is but a block.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
While thought exists, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living.
—Cyril Connolly (1903–74) British Literary Critic, Writer
We are as liable to be corrupted by books, as by companions.
—Henry Fielding (1707–54) English Novelist, Dramatist
Readers are plentiful: thinkers are rare.
—Harriet Martineau (1802–76) English Sociologist, Economist, Essayist, Philosopher
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.
—James Baldwin (1924–87) American Novelist, Social Critic
A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
What is twice read is commonly better remembered than what is transcribed.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade.
—Anthony Trollope (1815–82) English Novelist
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.
—Charles Kingsley (1819–75) English Clergyman, Academic, Historian, Novelist
Human contacts have been so highly valued in the past only because reading was not a common accomplishment…. The world, you must remember, is only just becoming literate. As reading becomes more and more habitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number of people will discover that books will give them all the pleasures of social life and none of its intolerable tedium.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
A great book should leave you with many experiences and slightly exhausted at the end. You should live several lives while reading it.
—William Styron (1925–2006) American Novelist, Essayist, Writer
The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
I suppose every old scholar has had the experience of reading something in a book which was significant to him, but which he could never find again. Sure he is that he read it there, but no one else ever read it, nor can he find it again, though he buy the book and ransack every page.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
He picked something valuable out of everything he read.
—Pliny the Elder (23–79CE) Roman Statesman, Scholar
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.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
Beware you be not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.
—John Wesley (1703–91) British Methodist Religious Leader, Preacher, Theologian
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Readers are less and less seen as mere non-writers, the subhuman “other” or flawed derivative of the author; the lack of a pen is no longer a shameful mark of secondary status but a positively enabling space, just as within every writer can be seen to lurk, as a repressed but contaminating antithesis, a reader.
—Terry Eagleton
The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life—and one is as good as the other.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
Read, read, search, and refine your appetite; learn to live upon instruction; feast your mind and mortify your flesh.—Read and take your nourishment in all your eyes; shut up your mouth, and chew the cud of understanding.
—William Congreve (1670–1729) English Playwright, Poet
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.
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) American-British Essayist, Bibliophile
One man is as good as another until he has written a book.
—Benjamin Jowett (1817–93) British Theologian, Translator
He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Read at every wait; read at all hours; read within leisure; read in times of labor; read as one goes in; read as one goes out. The task of an educated mind is simply put: read to lead.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
A vacuum of ideas affects people differently than a vacuum of air, otherwise readers of books would be constantly collapsing.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms.
—Angela Carter (1940–92) English Novelist
The printing press is either the greatest blessing or the greatest curse of modern times, sometimes one forgets which it is.
—J. M. Barrie (1860–1937) Scottish Novelist, Dramatist
An ordinary man can surround himself with two thousand books and thenceforward have at least one place in the world in which it is possible to be happy.
—Augustine Birrell (1850–1933) English Politician, Essayist
Books that you may carry to the fireside, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Read as you taste fruit or savor wine, or enjoy friendship, love or life.
—Holbrook Jackson (1874–1948) British Journalist, Writer, Publisher
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.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes.
—Desiderius Erasmus (c.1469–1536) Dutch Humanist, Scholar
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.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to what our studies may point. The use of reading is to aid us in thinking.
—Edward Gibbon (1737–94) English Historian, Politician
I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.
—Jane Austen (1775–1817) English Novelist
To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
That is a good book which is opened with expectation, and closed with delight and profit.
—Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) American Teacher, Writer, Philosopher
When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books You will be reading meanings.
—Harold S. Geneen (1910–1997) British-American Businessman
Camerado! This is no book; who touches this touches a man.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
The newest books are those that never grow old.
—Holbrook Jackson (1874–1948) British Journalist, Writer, Publisher
By reading, we enjoy the dead; by conversation, the living; and by contemplation, ourselves. Reading enriches the memory; conversation polishes the wit; and contemplation improves the judgment. Of these, reading is the most important, as it furnishes both the others.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
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 (1561–1626) English Philosopher
Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
Some books leave us free and some books make us free.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The mind should be accustomed to make wise reflections, and draw curious conclusions as it goes along; the habit of which made Pliny the Younger affirm that he never read a book so bad but he drew some profit from it.
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68) Irish Anglican Novelist, Clergyman
When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before.
—Clifton Fadiman (1904–99) American Author, Radio Personality