Beware of a man of one book.
—English Proverb
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. They are engines of change, windows on the world, lighthouses erected in the sea of time.
—Edwin Percy Whipple (1819–86) American Literary Critic
People get nothing out of books but what they bring to them.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
If a book is really good, it deserves to be read again, and if it’s great, it should be read at least three times.
—Anatole Broyard (1920–90) American Literary Critic
The world is the book of women. Whatever knowledge they may possess is more commonly acquired by observation than by reading.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
Books give not wisdom where none was before. But where some is, there reading makes it more.
—Elizabeth Hardwick (1916–2007) American Critic, Essayist
Books and friends should be few but good.
—Common Proverb
Borrowed wives, like borrowed books, are seldom returned.
—U.S. Proverb
Every book must be chewed to get out its juice.
—Chinese Proverb
Teachers die, but books live on.
—Dutch Proverb
Walls are the notebooks of fools.
—Arabic Proverb
A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book.
—Irish Proverb
These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves.
—Gilbert Highet (1906–78) Scottish-American Scholar, Critic
Old truths, old laws, old friends, old books, and old wine are best.
—Polish Proverb
If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.
—Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American Novelist, Editor, Academic
Knowledge without wisdom is a load of books on the back of an ass.
—Japanese Proverb
Books were my pass to personal freedom. I learned to read at age three, and soon discovered there was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
A classic is a book which people praise and don’t read.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
The book you don’t read won’t help.
—Jim Rohn (1930–2009) American Entrepreneur, Author, Motivational Speaker
Every age has its book.
—Arabic Proverb
A man is happy when he has books, but happier still when he does not need them.
—Chinese Proverb
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
It is better to be entirely without a book than to believe it entirely.
—Chinese Proverb
A good book praises itself.
—German Proverb
A single conversation across the table with a wise man is worth a month’s study of books.
—Chinese Proverb
The sight of books removes sorrows from the heart.
—African Proverb
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.
—Paul Sweeney
Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.
—Charles William Eliot (1834–1926) American Educationalist
We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.
—B. F. Skinner (1904–90) American Psychologist, Author
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