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
A wise man without a book is like a workman with no tools.
—Moroccan Proverb
The book you don’t read won’t help.
—Jim Rohn (1930–2009) American Entrepreneur, Author, Motivational Speaker
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
Scholars talk books, butchers talk pigs.
—Chinese Proverb
The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
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
Years know more than books.
—U.S. Proverb
There’s no thief like a bad book.
—Italian 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
My Book and Heart Must never part.
—Unknown
Teachers die, but books live on.
—Dutch Proverb
A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.
—Arabic 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
A book is a gift you can open again and again.
—Garrison Keillor (b.1942) American Author, Humorist, Radio Personality
Only through suffering and sorrow do we acquire the wisdom not found in books.
—Japanese Proverb
Every book must be chewed to get out its juice.
—Chinese Proverb
A good book praises itself.
—German Proverb
Beware of a man of one book.
—English Proverb
A pack of cards is the devil’s prayer book.
—German Proverb
Borrowed wives, like borrowed books, are seldom returned.
—U.S. Proverb
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
Don’t judge a book by its cover.
—English Proverb
Books and friends should be few but good.
—Common Proverb
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
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
We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.
—B. F. Skinner (1904–90) American Psychologist, Social Philosopher, Inventor, Author
The more sins you confess, the more books you will sell.
—U.S. Proverb
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
Books open your mind, broaden your mind, and strengthen you as nothing else can.
—William Feather (1889–1981) American Publisher, Author
A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book.
—Irish Proverb
Only your friends steal your books.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Old truths, old laws, old friends, old books, and old wine are best.
—Polish Proverb
A classic is a book which people praise and don’t read.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
The sight of books removes sorrows from the heart.
—African Proverb
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
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
Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book.
—Unknown
Better than the ignorant are those who read books; better still are those who retain what they read; even better are those who understand it; the best of all are those who go to work.
—Indian Proverb
It is better to be entirely without a book than to believe it entirely.
—Chinese Proverb
Every age has its book.
—Arabic Proverb
A single conversation across the table with a wise man is worth a month’s study of books.
—Chinese 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
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.
—Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German Poet, Writer
Knowledge without wisdom is a load of books on the back of an ass.
—Japanese Proverb