People get nothing out of books but what they bring to them.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
A man is happy when he has books, but happier still when he does not need them.
—Chinese Proverb
Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book.
—Irish Proverb
Years know more than books.
—U.S. Proverb
Beware of a man of one book.
—English Proverb
Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
Master books, but do not let them master you.—Read to live, not live to read.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
A book is a gift you can open again and again.
—Garrison Keillor (b.1942) American Author, Humorist, Radio Personality
Borrowed wives, like borrowed books, are seldom returned.
—U.S. Proverb
Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
The more sins you confess, the more books you will sell.
—U.S. Proverb
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new after all.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
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
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
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
Books and friends should be few but good.
—Common Proverb
Only through suffering and sorrow do we acquire the wisdom not found in books.
—Japanese Proverb
A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.
—Franz Kafka (1883–1924) Austrian Novelist, Short Story Writer
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
Books open your mind, broaden your mind, and strengthen you as nothing else can.
—William Feather (1889–1981) American Publisher, Author
Scholars talk books, butchers talk pigs.
—Chinese Proverb
Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.
—Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German Poet, Writer
The sight of books removes sorrows from the heart.
—African Proverb
There’s no thief like a bad book.
—Italian Proverb
Only your friends steal your books.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
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
Teachers die, but books live on.
—Dutch 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
Every age has its book.
—Arabic Proverb