Literature

"Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a dangerous enemy indeed."

"No one ever reads a book. He reads himself through books, either to discover or to control himself. And the most objective books are the most deceptive. The greatest book is not the one whose message engraves itself on the brain, as a telegraphic message engraves itself on the ticker-tape, but the one whose vital impact opens up other viewpoints, and from writer to reader spreads the fire that is fed by the various essences, until it becomes a vast conflagration leaping from forest to forest."

"It seems to me that the dedication of a library is in itself an act of faith."

"To bring together the records of the past and to house them in buildings where they will be preserved for the use of men and women in the future, a Nation must believe in three things. It must believe in the past. It must believe in the future. It must, above all, believe in the capacity of its own people so to learn from the past that they can gain in judgment in creating their own future."

"Among democracies, I think through all the recorded history of the world, the building of permanent institutions like libraries and museums for the use of all the people flourishes. And that is especially true in our own land, because we believe that people ought to work out for themselves, and through their own study, the determination of their best interest rather than accept such so-called information as may be handed out to them by certain types of self-constituted leaders who decide what is best for them."

"The fact that a book, though interesting, is untrue, of course removes it at once from the category of history, however much it may still deserve to retain a place in the always desirable group of volumes which deal with entertaining fiction. But the converse also holds, at least to the extent of permitting us to insist upon what would seem to be the elementary fact that a book which is written to be read should be readable. This rather obvious truth seems to been forgotten by some of the more zealous scientific historians, who apparently hold that the worth of a historical book is directly in proportion to the impossibility of reading it, save as a painful duty."

"Personally the books by which I have profited infinitely more than by any others have been those in which profit was a by-product of the pleasure; that is, I read them because I enjoyed them, because I liked reading them, and the profit came in as part of the enjoyment."

"There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it."

"A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person—perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew each other. Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic."

"All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value."

"Books, purchasable at low cost, permit us to interrogate the past with high accuracy; to tap the wisdom of our species; to understand the point of view of others, and not just those in power; to contemplate — with the best teachers — the insights, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, drawn from the entire planet and from all of our history. They allow people long dead to talk inside our heads. Books can accompany us everywhere. Books are patient where we are slow to understand, allow us to go over the hard parts as many times as we wish, and are never critical of our lapses. Books are key to understanding the world and participating in a democratic society."

"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."

"Be less concerned about the number of the books you read, and more about the good use you make of them. The best of books is the Bible."

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

"That roars so loud and thunders in the index."

"A beggar's book out-worths a noble's blood."

"Keep * * * thy pen from lenders' books, and defy the foul fiend."

"We turn'd o'er many books together."

"I had rather than forty shillings, I had my Book of Songs and Sonnets here."

"That book in many's eyes doth share the glory, That in gold clasps locks in the golden story."

"O, let my books be then the eloquence And dumb presagers of my speaking breast; Who plead for love and look for recompense More than that tongue that more hath more express'd."

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

"And deeper than did ever plummet sound, I'll drown my book."

"And in such indexes (although small pricks To their subsequent volumes) there is seen The baby figure of the giant mass Of things to come at large."

"You shall see them on a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall meander through a meadow of margin."

"What this town has not given her the book will provide: a sheep, a wilderness of new solutions"

"Sikander burnt all books the same wise as fire burns hay. All the scintillating works faced destruction in the same manner that lotus flowers face with the onset of frosty winter."

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

"When we turn to secular literature it is impossible to name a list of books that will fit each individual need. Writers and educators have attempted to do so intermittently since Sir John Lubbock first published his list of “One Hundred Best Books.” Usually such a list is of little value except to reflect the writer’s personality."

"Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life."

"When we are collecting books, we are collecting happiness."

"Reading books is for losers who are afraid to learn from life. So they try and learn from the life OTHERS have lived. But you never REALLY learn unless you lived it. You must feel it to believe it. Books are a total waste of time. Education for cowards."

"Sometimes she thought she only dreamed about dancing while her real life was lived in books. She could get lost in a book, in being someone else, in feeling amplified, complicated, her simple self fancied up with new sensations, new ideas and perceptions. In books she had family, community, a place in history; she had travels and explorations, struggle and achievement."

"But most of all, it seems to me now, has been the courage to know and to sense my feelings that has come, slowly, from the emotionally charged silent films at the old library at first and then later from the poems and novels and histories and biographies and how-to-do-it books that I have read. All of those books—even the dull and nearly incomprehensible ones—have made me understand more clearly what it means to be a human being. And I have learned from the sense of awe I at times develop when I feel in touch with the mind of another, long-dead person and know that I am not alone on this earth. There have been others who have felt as I feel and who have, at times, been able to say the unsayable."

"How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book."

"A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild-flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East."

"No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading now, or surrender yourself to self-ignorance."

"He touched other books, scanned other volumes, all old friends, all holding for him some special grace, some captured memory. He read a story for the hundredth time and enjoyed it as if he had read it but once. He fingered worn bindings and yellowed pages, blinking as his eyes refused their duty until he had had a surfeit of reading and put away the books and sat, staring through the high windows at the late-afternoon sky beyond."

"A good book is the best of friends, the same today and forever."

"Un livre est une bouteille jetée en pleine mer sur laquelle il faut coller cette étiquette: attrape qui peut."

"If you go home with someone and they don't have books, don't fuck them."

"Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book."

"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written."

"Putting books on an inaccessible platform is nearly as effective at destroying books as the shredder."

"I told the Englishman that my alma mater was books, a good library. Every time I catch a plane, I have with me a book that I want to read—and that’s a lot of books these days. If I weren’t out here every day battling the white man, I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity—because you can hardly mention anything I’m not curious about."

"People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book."

"Unlearned men of books assume the care, As eunuchs are the guardians of the fair."

"A dedication is a wooden leg."

"Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn."

"That is a good book which is opened with expectation and closed with profit."