Inspirational Quotes on Reading

“It is not all books that are as dull as their readers. There are probably words addressed to our condition exactly, which, if we could really hear and understand, would be more salutary than the morning or the spring to our lives, and possibly put a new aspect on the face of things for us. How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. The book exists for us perchance which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and each has answered them, according to his ability, by his words and his life.”

“Some books claiming to be exhaustive are only exhausting to read.”

“No book is really worth reading, which does not either impart valuable knowledge; or set before us some ideal of beauty, strength, or nobility of character. There are enough great books to occupy us during all our short and busy years. If we are wise, we will resolutely avoid all but the richest and the best.”

“It is not all books that are as dull as their readers.”

“On the day of judgment, it will be demanded of us not what we have read, but what we have done.”

“Mine is to chew on the appropriate texts and make them delectable.”

“It is not all books that are as dull as their readers. There are probably words addressed to our condition exactly, which, if we could really hear and understand, would be more salutary than the morning or the spring to our lives, and possibly put a new aspect on the face of things for us. How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.”

“One thinks of nothing,’ he continued; ‘the hours slip by. Motionless we traverse countries we fancy we see, and your thought, blinding with the fiction, playing with the details, follows the outline of the adventures. It mingles with the characters, and it seems as if it were yourself palpitating beneath their costumes.”

“There is nothing more wonderful than a book. It may be a message to us from the dead, from human souls we never saw who lived perhaps thousands of miles away, and yet these little sheets of paper speak to us, arouse us, teach us, open our hearts and in turn open their hearts to us like brothers. Without books, God is silent, justice dormant, philosophy lame.”

“sejarah menjadikan orang bijaksana, puisi menjadikan orang fasih lidah, matematika menjadikan orang cerdik, filsafat menyebabkan orang berpikir dalam, moral menjadikan orang bersikap sungguh-sungguh, logika dan ilmu berpidato menjadikan orang berani mengeluarkan pendapat.”

“The book exists for us perchance which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and each has answered them, according to his ability, by his words and his life.”

“Life was so short, and books so countlessly many.”

“In order to pronounce a book bad it is not enough to discover that it elicits no good response from ourselves, for that might be our fault.”

“For I need not remind such an audience as this that the neat sorting out of books into age-groups, so dear to publishers, has only a very sketchy relation with the habits of any real readers. Those of us who are blamed when old for reading childish books were blamed when children for reading books too old for us. No reader worth his salt trots along in obedience to a time-table.”

“More than at any other time, when I hold a beloved book in my hand my limitations fall from me, my spirit is free.”

“What I have learned from about twenty years of serious reading is this: It is sentences that change my life, not books. What changes my life is some new glimpse of truth, some powerful challenge, some resolution to a long-standing dilemma, and these usually come concentrated in a sentence or two. I do not remember 99% of what I read, but if the 1% of each book or article I do remember is a life-changing insight, then I don't begrudge the 99%. From "Quantitative Hopelessness and the Immeasurable Moment”

“Motionless we traverse countries we fancy we see, and your thought, blending with the fiction, playing with the details, follows the outline of the adventures. It mingles with the characters, and it seems as if it were yourself palpitating beneath their costumes.”

“From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books.”

“Without moving, you walk through lands you imagine you can see, and your thoughts, weaving in and out of the story, delight in the details or follow the outlines of the adventures. You merge with the character; you think you're the one whose heart is beating so hard within the clothes he's wearing.”

“Either write something worth reading, or do something worth writing.”