
„Tell me how you read and I'll tell you who you are.“
— Martin Heidegger German philosopher 1889 - 1976
A collection of quotes on the topic of reading, read, books, book.
„Tell me how you read and I'll tell you who you are.“
— Martin Heidegger German philosopher 1889 - 1976
„Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.“
— George Bernard Shaw Irish playwright 1856 - 1950
„When I read about the dangers of drinking, I gave up reading“
— Henny Youngman American comedian 1906 - 1998
Variant: When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.
„Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body.“
— Joseph Addison politician, writer and playwright 1672 - 1719
No. 147.
The Tatler (1711–1714)
Variant: A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body
Context: Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. As by the one, health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated: by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished, and confirmed.
„There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.“
— Joseph Brodsky Russian and American poet and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate 1940 - 1996
Misattributed
„"Classic." A book which people praise and don't read.“
— Mark Twain, book Following the Equator
Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. XXV
Following the Equator (1897)
„Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.“
— Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Source: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
„I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.“
— Oscar Wilde, book The Picture of Dorian Gray
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
„My Best Friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.“
— Abraham Lincoln 16th President of the United States 1809 - 1865
„We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.“
— Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds
75
Source: Stray Birds (1916)
Total 4750 quotes reading, filter:
„Just because you read it in a magazine,
Or see it on a TV screen
Don't make it factual.“
— Michael Jackson American singer, songwriter and dancer 1958 - 2009
Tabloid Junkie
HIStory: Past, Present & Future, Book I (1995)
„Please read my diary, look through my things and figure me out.“
— Kurt Cobain, book Journals
Source: Journals
„I am not well read, but when I do read, I read well.“
— Kurt Cobain, book Journals
Source: Journals (2002), p. 124
„The best way to know the soul of another country is to read its literature.“
— Amos Oz Israeli writer, novelist, journalist and intellectual 1939 - 2018
„For every book you buy, you should buy the time to read it.“
— Karl Lagerfeld German fashion designer 1933 - 2019
— Smith Wigglesworth British evangelist 1859 - 1947
Page 79
The Complete Story: A New Biography on the Apostle of Faith By Julian Wilson http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=e2RWZpOHfmoC|Wigglesworth:
— Jiddu Krishnamurti Indian spiritual philosopher 1895 - 1986
Source: 1980s, That Benediction is Where You Are (1985), p. 18
Context: From childhood we are trained to have problems. When we are sent to school, we have to learn how to write, how to read, and all the rest of it. How to write becomes a problem to the child. Please follow this carefully. Mathematics becomes a problem, history becomes a problem, as does chemistry. So the child is educated, from childhood, to live with problems — the problem of God, problem of a dozen things. So our brains are conditioned, trained, educated to live with problems. From childhood we have done this. What happens when a brain is educated in problems? It can never solve problems; it can only create more problems. When a brain that is trained to have problems, and to live with problems, solves one problem, in the very solution of that problem, it creates more problems. From childhood we are trained, educated to live with problems and, therefore, being centred in problems, we can never solve any problem completely. It is only the free brain that is not conditioned to problems that can solve problems. It is one of our constant burdens to have problems all the time. Therefore our brains are never quiet, free to observe, to look. So we are asking: Is it possible not to have a single problem but to face problems? But to understand those problems, and to totally resolve them, the brain must be free.
„Read a little. Meditate more. Think of God all the time.“
— Paramahansa Yogananda Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship 1893 - 1952
„No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.“
— Mary Wortley Montagu writer and poet from England 1689 - 1762
— Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955
Found in Montana Libraries: Volumes 8-14 (1954), p. cxxx http://books.google.com/books?id=PpwaAAAAMAAJ&q=%22more+fairy+tales%22#search_anchor. The story is given as follows: "In the current New Mexico Library Bulletin, Elizabeth Margulis tells a story of a woman who was a personal friend of the late dean of scientists, Dr. Albert Einstein. Motivated partly by her admiration for him, she held hopes that her son might become a scientist. One day she asked Dr. Einstein's advice about the kind of reading that would best prepare the child for this career. To her surprise, the scientist recommended 'Fairy tales and more fairy tales.' The mother protested that she was really serious about this and she wanted a serious answer; but Dr. Einstein persisted, adding that creative imagination is the essential element in the intellectual equipment of the true scientist, and that fairy tales are the childhood stimulus to this quality." However, it is unclear from this description whether Margulis heard this story personally from the woman who had supposedly had this discussion with Einstein, and the relevant issue of the New Mexico Library Bulletin does not appear to be online.
Variant: "First, give him fairy tales; second, give him fairy tales, and third, give him fairy tales!" Found in The Wilson Library Bulletin, Vol. 37 from 1962, which says on p. 678 http://books.google.com/books?id=KfQOAQAAMAAJ&q=einstein#search_anchor that this quote was reported by "Doris Gates, writer and children's librarian".
Variant: "Fairy tales … More fairy tales … Even more fairy tales". Found in Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales by Jack Zipes (1979), p. 1 http://books.google.com/books?id=MxZFuahqzsMC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Variant: "If you want your children to be brilliant, tell them fairy tales. If you want them to be very brilliant, tell them even more fairy tales." Found in Chocolate for a Woman's Heart & Soul by Kay Allenbaugh (1998), p. 57 http://books.google.com/books?id=grrpJh7-CfcC&q=brilliant#search_anchor. This version can be found in Usenet posts from before 1998, like this one from 1995 http://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.beatles/msg/cec9a9fdf803b72b?hl=en.
Variant: "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be very intelligent, read them more fairy tales." Found in Mad, Bad and Dangerous?: The Scientist and the Cinema by Christopher Frayling (2005), p. 6 http://books.google.com/books?id=HjRYA3ELdG0C&lpg=PA6&dq=einstein%20%22want%20your%20children%20to%20be%20intelligent%22&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q=einstein%20%22want%20your%20children%20to%20be%20intelligent%22&f=false.
Variant: "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales." Found in Super joy English, Volume 8 by 佳音事業機構 (2006), p. 87 http://books.google.com/books?id=-HUBKzP8zsUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA87#v=onepage&q&f=false
Disputed
Context: Fairy tales and more fairy tales. [in response to a mother who wanted her son to become a scientist and asked Einstein what reading material to give him]
„The story you are about to read is a work of fiction. Nothing - and everything - about it is real.“
— Todd Strasser American author of young-adult and middle grade novels 1950
„Nothing is better than reading and gaining more and more knowledge.“
— Stephen Hawking British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author 1942 - 2018
— Scott Cawthon American independent video game designer 1971
— Al Gore 45th Vice President of the United States 1948
Quotes, IPI speech (2000)
Context: The disruption of the world's ecological systems — from the rise of global warming and the consequent damage to our climate balance, to the loss of living species and the depletion of ocean fisheries and forest habitats — continues at a frightening rate. Practically every day, it becomes clearer to us that must act now to protect our Earth, while preserving and creating jobs for our people.
And at the very same time that these threats are developing, the traditional nation-state itself is changing — as power moves upwards and downwards, to everything from supra-national organizations and coalitions all the way down to feuding clans. Susceptible to tyrants willing to exploit ethnic and religious rivalries, the weakest of these states have either imploded into civil war or threatened to lash out across their borders.
To meet these challenges requires cooperation on a scale not seen before. A realistic reading of the world today demands reinvigorated international and regional institutions. It demands that we confront threats before they spiral out of the control. And it requires American leadership — to protect our interests and uphold our values.
— James Clerk Maxwell, book A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism
A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (1873), Preface, p. xiii.
„A book worth reading is worth owning.“
— John Ruskin English writer and art critic 1819 - 1900
Variant: If a book is worth reading, it is worth buying.
— Charles Darwin British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection" 1809 - 1882
Source: The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–82
— Anne Brontë, book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Preface, 2nd edition (22 July 1848)
Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848)
Context: I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are, or should be, written for both men and women to read, and I am at loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.
— Eddie Izzard British stand-up comedian, actor and writer 1962
Dress to Kill (1998)
Source: Eddie Izzard: Dress to Kill
Context: I had to chat up girls, and I'd only tagged them before. I didn't have the verbal power to be able to say, "Susan, I saw you in the classroom today. As the sun came from behind the clouds, a burst of brilliant light caught your hair, it was haloed in front of me. You turned, your eyes flashed fire into my soul, I immediately read the words of Dostoevsky and Karl Marx, and in the words of Albert Schweitzer, 'I fancy you.' " But no! At 13, you're just going, " 'Ello, Sue. I saw you in the room... I've got legs, have you? Oh yeah... Do you like bread? I've got a French loaf. [mimes smacking her with the loaf and dashing off] Bye! (I love you!)"
„Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.“
— Douglas Adams English writer and humorist 1952 - 2001
— Jimmy Carter American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981) 1924
Source: Through the Year with Jimmy Carter: 366 Daily Meditations from the 39th President
„I can imagine no greater bliss than to lie about, reading novels all day.“
— Julia Quinn American novelist 1970
Source: Ten Things I Love About You
— John Locke English philosopher and physician 1632 - 1704
As quoted in "Hand Book : Caution and Counsels" in The Common School Journal Vol. 5, No. 24 (15 December 1843) by Horace Mann, p. 371
Context: This is that which I think great readers are apt to be mistaken in; those who have read of everything, are thought to understand everything too; but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections; unless we chew them over again, they will not give us strength and nourishment.
„The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.“
— Immanuel Kant German philosopher 1724 - 1804
— Mark Twain American author and humorist 1835 - 1910
No known source in Twain's works.
The earliest known source is a Usenet post from November 2000 https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=israel.francophones/j_b0peHVcJw/YN5cG6Pdk6QJ.
Disputed
„Without reading, we are all without light in the dark, without fire in the cold.“
— Tamora Pierce American writer of fantasy novels for children 1954
Source: Tortall and Other Lands: A Collection of Tales
„Someday I must read this scholar Everyone. He seems to have written so much--all of it wrong.“
— Tamora Pierce, book Emperor Mage
Source: Emperor Mage
„Reading is not walking on the words; it's grasping the soul of them.“
— Paulo Freire educator and philosopher 1921 - 1997
„Reading gives us some place to go when we have to stay where we are.“
— Mason Cooley American academic 1927 - 2002
Variant: Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.
„The pleasure of all reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books.“
— Katherine Mansfield New Zealand author 1888 - 1923
Letter to Ottoline Morrell (January 1922)
„It's a mistake to read. Television is the only way.“
— Conan O'Brien American television show host and comedian 1963
— Nora Ephron Film director, author screenwriter 1941 - 2012
Variant: I always read the last page of a book first so that if I die before I finish I'll know how it turned out.
Source: When Harry Met Sally
„Easy reading is damn hard writing.“
— Nathaniel Hawthorne American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879) 1804 - 1864
Also attributed to Ernest Hemingway and others; the earliest definite occurrence of this yet found in research for Wikiquote is by Maya Angelou, who stated it in Conversations With Maya Angelou (1989) edited by Jeffrey M. Elliot:
I think it's Alexander Pope who says, "Easy writing is damn hard reading," and vice versa, easy reading is damn hard writing
The statement she referred to is most probably:
You write with ease, to show your breeding,
But easy writing's curst hard reading
Clio's Protest, or the Picture Varnished (written 1771, published 1819) by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Disputed
— Pablo Neruda Chilean poet 1904 - 1973
dies slowly…
Muere lentamente quien no viaja, quien no lee,
quien no oye música,
quien no encuentra gracia en sí mismo.
Muere lentamente
quien destruye su amor propio,
quien no se deja ayudar...
Poem "Muere lentamente" (Dying Slowly), wrongly attributed to Pablo Neruda. See "Fake Pablo Neruda Poem Spreads on Internet" http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=325275&CategoryId=14094 by Ana Mendoza, Latin American Herald Tribune (12 January 2009).
Misattributed
Source: Selected Poems
„Reading is not an end to itself, but a means to an end.“
— Adolf Hitler, book Mein Kampf
Source: Mein Kampf
„All good tales are true tales, at least for those who read them, which is all that counts.“
— Javier Cercas Spanish writer, journalist and professor of Spanish literature 1962
„I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.“
— Orhan Pamuk, book The New Life
Source: The New Life
„I've read the last page of the Bible, it's all going to turn out all right.“
— Billy Graham American Christian evangelist 1918 - 2018
„To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.“
— Victor Hugo French poet, novelist, and dramatist 1802 - 1885
— Markus Persson Swedish video game programmer 1979
In Twitter (14 August 2017) https://twitter.com/notch/status/897158641962319878
— Takeda Shingen Japanese daimyo of the Sengoku period 1521 - 1573
William Scott Wilson, Gregory Lee. Ideals of the Samurai: Writings of Japanese Warriors, 1982. p 95
— Francesco Balilla Pratella Italian composer 1880 - 1955
Original text:
Tutti gli innovatori sono stati logicamente futuristi, in relazione ai loro tempi. Palestrina avrebbe giudicato pazzo Bach, e così Bach avrebbe giudicato Beethoven, e così Beethoven avrebbe giudicato Wagner.
Rossini si vantava di aver finalmente capito la musica di Wagner leggendola a rovescio! Verdi, dopo un’audizione dell’ouverture del Tannhäuser, in una lettera a un suo amico chiamava Wagner matto.
Siamo dunque alla finestra di un manicomio glorioso, mentre dichiariamo, senza esitare, che il contrappunto e la fuga, ancor oggi considerati come il ramo più importante dell’insegnamento musicale...
Source: Technical Manifesto of Futurist Music (1911), p. 80
— Alhazen Arab physicist, mathematician and astronomer 965 - 1039
Alhazen, quoted in “Muslim Journeys.” Bridging Cultures Bookshelf: Muslim Journeys. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Nov. 2013. Also in Ibn al-Haytham Brief life of an Arab mathematician: died circa 1040 (September-October 2003) http://harvardmagazine.com/2003/09/ibn-al-haytham-html
— Al Gore 45th Vice President of the United States 1948
Testimony before Congress (21 March 2007), as quoted in "Gore Implores Congress To Save The Planet" at CBS Evening News (21 March 2007) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/21/politics/main2591104.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_2591104
— George Müller German-English clergyman 1805 - 1898
A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Müller Written by Himself, First Part.
First Part of Narrative
— Jason Reynolds author of young adult novels 1983
As quoted in [Jason Reynolds Named New National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-20-002/jason-reynolds-named-new-national-ambassador-for-young-peoples-literature/2020-01-13/, Library of Congress, 10 March 2020, January 13, 2020]
— Jane Goodall British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist 1934
"The Power of One", TIME Magazine (26 August 2002) http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1003125,00.html
— Swami Vivekananda Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher 1863 - 1902
Source: Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 9 Vols.
— E.M. Forster English novelist 1879 - 1970
"Anonymity: An Enquiry"
Source: Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)
— Isaac Bashevis Singer Polish-born Jewish-American author 1902 - 1991
Nobel lecture as quoted in The Observer (17 December 1978) Variant: "They still believe in God, the family, angels, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other obsolete stuff."
„Beppu (n.)
The triumphant slamming shut of a book after reading the final page.“
— Douglas Adams, book The Meaning of Liff
Source: The Deeper Meaning of Liff
— Emily Dickinson American poet 1830 - 1886
Letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1870), letter #342a of The Letters of Emily Dickinson (1958), edited by Thomas H. Johnson, associate editor Theodora Ward, page 474
Source: Selected Letters
„Life is a book and there are a thousand pages I have not yet read.“
— Cassandra Clare, book Clockwork Princess
Source: Clockwork Princess
„I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say.“
— Flannery O’Connor American novelist, short story writer 1925 - 1964
„You're never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.“
— Dr. Seuss American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books 1904 - 1991
„I read for pleasure and that is the moment I learn the most.“
— Margaret Atwood Canadian writer 1939
— Lloyd Alexander American children's writer 1924 - 2007
Source: Time Cat
„If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.“
— Toni Morrison American writer 1931 - 2019
„If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.“
— Stephen King American author 1947
Variant: Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.
Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
— Ann M. Martin American writer of children's literature 1955
Source: Hello, Mallory
„Besides, rereading, not reading, is what counts.“
— Jorge Luis Borges Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature 1899 - 1986
„You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.“
— Ray Bradbury, book Ray Bradbury
As quoted in "Bradbury Still Believes in Heat of ‘Fahrenheit 451’" http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19930312&slug=1689996, interview by Misha Berson, in ', credited to "Ray Bradbury, quoted by Misha Berson in Seattle Times", in "Quotable Quotes", The Reader's Digest, Vol. 144, No. 861, January 1994, p. 25 http://books.google.com/books?output=html&id=ZqqUAAAAIAAJ&q=%22people+to+stop+reading%22#search_anchor), or an indirect reference to the re-quoting in Reader's Digest (such as: The Times Book of Quotations (Philip Howard, ed.), 2000, Times Books and HarperCollins, p. 93
Variant: We're not teaching kids to read and write and think. … There's no reason to burn books if you don't read them.
As quoted in "At 80, Ray Bradbury Still Fighting the Future He Foresaw" http://www.raybradbury.com/articles_peoria.html, interview by Roger Moore, in The Peoria Journal Star (August 2000)
Context: The problem in our country isn't with books being banned, but with people no longer reading. Look at the magazines, the newspapers around us – it's all junk, all trash, tidbits of news. The average TV ad has 120 images a minute. Everything just falls off your mind. … You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
— Gaston Bachelard French writer and philosopher 1884 - 1962
A Retrospective Glance at the Lifework of a Master of Books
Fragments of a Poetics of Fire (1988)
„She had her addictions and one of them was reading.“
— Jeannette Walls, book The Glass Castle
Source: The Glass Castle