These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves.
—Gilbert Highet (1906–78) Scottish-American Scholar, Critic
A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.
—Arabic Proverb
Beware of a man of one book.
—English Proverb
Books and friends should be few but good.
—Common Proverb
Knowledge without wisdom is a load of books on the back of an ass.
—Japanese Proverb
It is better to be entirely without a book than to believe it entirely.
—Chinese Proverb
Teachers die, but books live on.
—Dutch Proverb
My Book and Heart Must never part.
—Unknown
Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
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 good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book.
—Irish Proverb
We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.
—B. F. Skinner (1904–90) American Psychologist, 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
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
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
People get nothing out of books but what they bring to them.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book.
—Unknown
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
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
A wise man without a book is like a workman with no tools.
—Moroccan 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
Walls are the notebooks of fools.
—Arabic Proverb
Only your friends steal your books.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
Years know more than books.
—U.S. Proverb
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
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
Scholars talk books, butchers talk pigs.
—Chinese Proverb
Borrowed wives, like borrowed books, are seldom returned.
—U.S. Proverb
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