Motivational Quotes

Books

Live always in the best company when you read.

- Sydney Smith

Best Quotes about Books

There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love.

Christopher Morley

It was a book to kill time for those who like it better dead.

Dame Rose Macaulay

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

Logan Pearsall Smith

When I step into this library, I cannot understand why I ever step out of it.

Marie de Sevigne

Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.

W. H. Auden

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.

Charles W. Eliot

Thank you for sending me a copy of your book. I'll waste no time reading it.

Moses Hadas

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.

Sir Francis Bacon

In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

10.

Most new books are forgotten within a year, especially by those who borrow them.

Evan Esar

11.

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

12.

Don't join the book burners. Don't think you're going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book...

Dwight D. Eisenhower

13.

Woe be to him that reads but one book.

George Herbert

14.

Books to the ceiling, Books to the sky, My pile of books is a mile high. How I love them! How I need them! I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.

Arnold Lobel

15.

Read at least one book a month. This is self-serving, obviously. It's a proven fact that people who read buy more books than people who don't read. In truth, I wish you'd read ten books a month, or at least buy that many.

Randy Pausch

16.

Reading this book is like waiting for the first shoe to drop.

Ralph Novak

17.

Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.

Charles Caleb Colton

18.

A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.

Salman Rushdie

19.

Oh for a book and a shady nook...

John Wilson

20.

Be as careful of the books you read, as of the company you keep; for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as by the latter.

Paxton Hood

21.

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.

Sir Francis Bacon

22.

I have read your book and much like it.

Moses Hadas

23.

Learn as much by writing as by reading.

Lord Acton

24.

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.

Voltaire

25.

There's a certain kind of conversation you have from time to time at parties in New York about a new book. The word "banal" sometimes rears its by-now banal head; you say "underedited," I say "derivative." The conversation goes around and around various literary criticisms, and by the time it moves on one thing is clear: No one read the book; we just read the reviews.

Anna Quindlen

26.

Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.

Ezra Pound

27.

Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.

William Shakespeare

28.

From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.

Groucho Marx

29.

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

Albert Einstein

30.

Life-transforming ideas have always come to me through books.

Bell Hooks

31.

This book fills a much-needed gap.

Moses Hadas

32.

Do give books - religious or otherwise - for Christmas. They're never fattening, seldom sinful, and permanently personal.

Lenore Hershey

33.

I think it is good that books still exist, but they do make me sleepy.

Frank Zappa

34.

Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought.

Sir Arthur Helps

35.

This paperback is very interesting, but I find it will never replace a hardcover book - it makes a very poor doorstop.

Alfred Hitchcock

36.

Books...are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with'em, then we grow out of'em and leave'em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development.

Dorothy L. Sayers

37.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

Sir Richard Steele

38.

When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.

Michel de Montaigne

39.

Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.

Kathleen Norris

40.

This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.

William Goldman

41.

You can cover a great deal of country in books.

Andrew Lang

42.

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

Groucho Marx

43.

I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.

Upton Sinclair

44.

Live always in the best company when you read.

Sydney Smith

45.

The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting.

Henry James

46.

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

Robertson Davies

47.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

G. K. Chesterton

48.

I've never known any trouble that an hour's reading didn't assuage.

Charles De Secondat

49.

A room without books is like a body without a soul.

Cicero

50.

The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books.