“Man is what he reads.”

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

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“A man is known by the books he reads.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“Reading maketh a full man; and writing an axact man. And, therefore, if a man write little, he need have a present wit; and if he read little, he need have much cunning to seem to know which he doth not.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

“He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. He is careful of what he learns, for that is what he will know.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

“It is the mark of a truly educated man to know what not to read.”

Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

“He was able to read and write like a well bred man.”

Dominicus Corea (1565–1596) King of Kotte and Sitawaka

“Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

“He was a learned man, of immense reading, but is much blamed for his unfaithfull quotations.”

John Aubrey book Brief Lives