Thomas de Quincey Quotes About Books

Quotes about: Books

• Under our present enormous accumulation of books, I do affirm that a most miserable distraction of choice must be very generally incident to the times; that the symptoms of it are in fact very prevalent, and that one of the chief symptoms is an enormous 'gluttonism' for books.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Book, Choices, Facts

  Thomas De Quincey (1856). “Letters to a Young Man: And Other Papers”, p.40

• Books, we are told, propose to instruct or to amuse. Indeed! A true antithesis to knowledge, in this case, is not pleasure, but power. All that is literature seeks to communicate power; all that is not literature, to communicate knowledge.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Book, Literature, Pleasure

  'Letters to a Young Man whose Education has been Neglected' no. 3, in the 'London Magazine' January-July 1823. De Quincey adds that he is indebted for this distinction to 'many years' conversation with Mr Wordsworth'

• It is one of the misfortunes in life that one must read thousands of books only to discover that one need not have read them.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Book, Needs, Misfortunes

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