Book Quotes

• The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.

  Rene Descartes

  Wisdom, Reading, Math

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• A book full of brilliance imparts some of it even to its opponents.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Opponents, Spirit, Wit

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• What good is a book that does not even transport us beyond all books?

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Doe, Transport

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• A book should long for pen, ink, and writing-table: but usually it is pen, ink, and writing-table that long for a book. That is why books are so negligible nowadays.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Writing, Long, Ink

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• Never to read another book that was born and baptized (with ink) at the same time.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Ink, Born, Baptized

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• Knowledge and increase of enduring joy
  From the great Nature that exists in works
  Of mighty Poets.

  William Wordsworth

  Wisdom, Poetry, Joy

  William Wordsworth (1850). “The Prelude, Or, Growth of a Poet's Mind: An Autobiographical Poem”, p.131, London E. Moxon 1850.

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• The rush to books and universities is like the rush to the public house. People want to drown their realization of the difficulties of living properly in this grotesque contemporary world, they want to forget their own deplorable inefficiency as artists in life.

  Aldous Huxley

  Artist, People, House

  Aldous Huxley (1954). “The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley: Point counter point”

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• They do most by Books, who could do much without them, and he that chiefly owes himself unto himself, is the substantial Man.

  Thomas Browne

  Men

  Sir Thomas Browne (1844). “Religio Medici [and] Its Sequel Christian Morals”, p.158

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• It would be worth the while to select our reading, for books are the society we keep; to read only the serenely true; never statistics, nor fiction, nor news, nor reports, nor periodicals, but only great poems, and when they failed, read them again, or perchance write more. Instead of other sacrifice, we might offer up our perfect (teleia) thoughts to the gods daily, in hymns or psalms. For we should be at the helm at least once a day.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Reading, Writing, Sacrifice

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.83, Delphi Classics

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• You may rely on it that you have the best of me in my books, and that I am not worth seeing personally, the stuttering, blunderingclod-hopper that I am. Even poetry, you know, is in one sense an infinite brag and exaggeration. Not that I do not stand on all that I have written,--but what am I to the truth I feebly utter?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Truth, Poetry, May

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• Every sacred book, successively, has been accepted in the faith that it was to be the final resting-place of the sojourning soul;but after all, it was but a caravansary which supplied refreshment to the traveler, and directed him farther on his way to Isphahan or Bagdat. Thank God, no Hindoo tyranny prevailed at the framing of the world, but we are freemen of the universe, and not sentenced to any caste.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Freedom, Soul, Religion

  Henry David Thoreau, Bradford Torrey, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn (1906). “The Writings of Henry David Thoreau ....”

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• It would be worthy of the age to print together the collected Scriptures or Sacred Writings of the several nations, the Chinese, the Hindoos, the Persians, the Hebrews, and others, as the Scripture of mankind. The New Testament is still, perhaps, too much on the lips and in the hearts of men to be called a Scripture in this sense. Such a juxtaposition and comparison might help to liberalize the faith of men.... This would be the Bible, or Book of Books, which let the missionaries carry to the uttermost parts of the earth.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Writing, Heart, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.101, Xist Publishing

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• Quality. That's the first word, the one word that comes to mind when I think of the books published by Abrams. In a world where so many companies are willing to cut corners, to do things the easy way in order to enhance the bottom line, it's gratifying to know that there's one company that obviously takes such pride in its finished product, one company that can always be counted on to design and produce a book that is, itself, as much a work of art as the illustrations on its pages.

  Stan Lee

  Art, Pride, Cutting

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• Books don’t change the world, people change the world, books only change people.

  Mario Quintana

  People, World, Don't Change

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• Common sense should tell us that reading is the ultimate weapon--destroying ignorance, poverty and despair before they can destroyus. A nation that doesn't read much doesn't know much. And a nation that doesn't know much is more likely to make poor choices in the home, the marketplace, the jury box and the voting booth...The challenge, therefore, is to convince future generations of children that carrying a book is more rewarding than carrying guns.

  Jim Trelease

  Children, Reading, Ignorance

  Jim Trelease (2001). “The Read-aloud Handbook”, Alloybooks

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• What I would like to write is a book about nothing, a book without exterior attachments, which would be held together by the innerforce of its style, as the earth without support is held in the air--a book that would have almost no subject or at least in which the subject would be almost invisible.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Art, Writing, Thoughtful

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• The exercise of letters is sometimes linked to the ambition to construct an absolute book, a book of books that includes the others like a Platonic archetype, an object whose virtues are not diminished by the passage of time.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Ambition, Exercise, Letters

  "Discussion". Book by Jorge Luis Borges, 19321932.

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• The paradox of publicity is that even as we do it, we know it's killing off the chance of another reader happening across our book in the ideal state of innocence.

  Emma Donoghue

  Publicity, Innocence, Chance

  "Emma Donoghue Chats About "Room". Interview with Macy Halford, www.newyorker.com. January 21, 2011.

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  Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.

  Margaret Fuller

  Inspirational, Happiness, Leadership

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• A room without books is like a life without meaning.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Rooms, Lovers, Book Lover

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• Books are a uniquely portable magic.

  Stephen King

  Education, Kings, Reading

  Stephen King (2000). “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft”, p.127, Simon and Schuster

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• Books are the best friends you can have; they inform you, and entertain you, and they don't talk back.

  John Steinbeck

  Friendship

  48 Copy quote

• The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.

  Dr. Seuss

  Inspirational, Life, Positive

  235 Copy quote
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  If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.

  Haruki Murakami

  Inspirational, Reading, Thinking

  FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Dec 08, 2014

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• Most books, like their authors, are born to die; of only a few books can it be said that death has no dominion over them; they live, and their influence lives forever.

  William Styron

  Reading, Forever, Dominion

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