READING QUOTES III

quotations about reading

Reading quote

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

SAMUEL JOHNSON

Boswell's Life of Johnson

Tags: Samuel Johnson


There are some who say that sitting at home reading is the equivalent of travel, because the experiences described in the book are more or less the same as the experiences one might have on a voyage, and there are those who say that there is no substitute for venturing out into the world. My own opinion is that it is best to travel extensively but to read the entire time, hardly glancing up to look out of the window of the airplane, train, or hired camel.

DANIEL HANDLER

as Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

Tags: Daniel Handler


Who reads
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not
A spirit and judgment equal or superior,
(And what he brings what need he elsewhere seek?)
Uncertain and unsettled still remains,
Deep versed in books and shallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys
And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge,
As children gathering pebbles on the shore.

JOHN MILTON

Paradise Regained

Tags: John Milton


Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.

HARPER LEE

To Kill a Mockingbird

Tags: Harper Lee


People read everything nowadays, except books.

MADAME SWETCHINE

attributed, Day's Collacon

Tags: Madame Swetchine


Education ... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.

G. M. TREVELYAN

English Social History

Tags: G. M. Trevelyan


Thou art the cause, O reader, of my dwelling on lighter topics, when I would rather handle serious ones.

MARTIAL

Epigrams

Tags: Martial


You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.

JAMES BALDWIN

Life Magazine, May 24, 1963

Tags: James Baldwin


I woke up thinking a very pleasant thought. There is lots left in the world to read.

NICHOLSON BAKER

The Anthologist

Tags: Nicholson Baker


Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they'll go through anything. You read and you're pierced.

ALDOUS HUXLEY

Brave New World

Tags: Aldous Huxley


The danger of reading too much is that we shall have only the thoughts of others. The danger of reading too little or none at all, that we shall have none but our own.

LORD ACTON

attributed, Day's Collacon

Tags: Lord Acton


Accurate reading on a wide range of subjects makes the scholar; careful selection of the better makes the saint.

JOHN OF SALISBURY

The Statesman's Book of John of Salisbury


Too much reading and too much meditation may produce the effect of a lamp inverted, which is extinguished by the excess of the oil, whose office it is to feed it.

GEORGE SEATON BOWES

Illustrative Gatherings for Preachers and Teachers


Reading is thinking with some one else's head instead of one's own.

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

"On Thinking for Oneself", Parerga und Paralipomena


The best moments in reading are when you come across something -- a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things -- which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.

ALAN BENNETT

The History Boys

Tags: Arnold Bennett


A book is a gift you can open again and again.

GARRISON KEILLOR

attributed, The Miracle of Language

Tags: Garrison Keillor


Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors.

JOSEPH ADDISON

The Spectator, June 18, 1711

Tags: Joseph Addison


In reality, people read because they want to write. Anyway, reading is a sort of rewriting.

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

interview, Les Ecrivains en Personne, 1959

Tags: Jean Paul Sartre


To read merely for reading's sake is almost as unprofitable as not reading at all. Setting out, in the first place with a clear idea of what we wish to learn, which is eminently important, we must afterwards, if we would realize what we have read, reperuse it in thought. This only makes it truly our own.

LEO HARTLEY GRINDON

Life: Its Nature, Varieties, and Phenomena


The second I learned to read in first grade, when I was 5, I preferred it to life. And I still do.

FRAN LEBOWITZ

"In Conversation: Fran Lebowitz with Phong Bui", The Brooklyn Rail, March 4, 2014

Tags: Fran Lebowitz