Book Quotes: Literary Pearls of Wisdom (Page 5)

"A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one, it comes as sincerely from the author's soul"

Aldous Huxley, Novelist

"I cannot live without books"

Thomas Jefferson, President

"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom"

Thomas Jefferson, President

"Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital"

Thomas Jefferson, President

"This will never be a civilized country until we spend more money for books than we do for chewing gum"

Elbert Hubbard, Writer

"The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read"

Abraham Lincoln, President

"Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all"

Abraham Lincoln, President

"After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books"

Albert Camus, Philosopher

"Erudition - dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull"

Ambrose Bierce, Journalist

"An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children"

Benjamin Disraeli, Statesman

"We cannot learn men from books"

Benjamin Disraeli, Statesman

"All that I know about my life, it seems, I have learned in books"

Jean-Paul Sartre, Philosopher

"The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books"

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Poet

"I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn"

Robert Frost, Poet

"By burning Luther's books you may rid your bookshelves of him, but you will not rid men's minds of him"

Desiderius Erasmus, Philosopher

"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book"

Ronald Reagan, President

"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations"

Winston Churchill, Statesman

"Its pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print. A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't"

Lord Byron, Poet

"What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books"

Sigmund Freud, Psychologist

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

Groucho Marx, Comedian

"I must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a good book"

Groucho Marx, Comedian

"Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all"

Henry David Thoreau, Author

"A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting"

Henry David Thoreau, Author

"A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars"

Henry David Thoreau, Author

"Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside"

Henry David Thoreau, Author

"Books are to be distinguished by the grandeur of their topics even more than by the manner in which they are treated"

Henry David Thoreau, Author

"Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations"

Henry David Thoreau, Author

"The book salesman should be honored because he brings to our attention, as a rule, the very books we need most and neglect most"

Confucius, Philosopher

"One trouble with developing speed reading skills is that by the time you realize a book is boring you've already finished it"

Franklin P. Jones, Journalist

"All that mankind has done, thought or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books"

Thomas Carlyle, Writer

"What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books"

Thomas Carlyle, Writer

"This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room"

Virginia Woolf, Author

"I read the book of Job last night, I don't think God comes out well in it"

Virginia Woolf, Author

"Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by his heart, and his friends can only read the title"

Virginia Woolf, Author

"I realised I'd never climb Everest but thought I could still write a book"

Sara Paretsky, Author

"In 1986 we were trying to help women get in print, stay in print, and come to the attention of booksellers and libraries. At that time, books by men mystery writers were reviewed seven times as often as books by women"

Sara Paretsky, Author

"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, Writer

"He who studies books alone will know how things ought to be, and he who studies men will know how they are"

Charles Caleb Colton, Writer

"Life isn't like a book. Life isn't logical or sensible or orderly. Life is a mess most of the time. And theology must be lived in the midst of that mess"

Charles Caleb Colton, Writer

"A novelist who writes nothing for 10 years finds his reputation rising. Because I keep on producing books they say there must be something wrong with this fellow"

J.B. Priestley, Writer

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