“A book read by a thousand different people is a thousand different books.”
Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 177
“In those days editions did not run to thousands or hundreds of thousands of copies as modern books—especially, bad books—do.”
Mathematical Methods in Science (1977)
Context: The volume of the cone was discovered by Democritus... He did not prove it, he guessed it... not a blind guess, rather it was reasoned conjecture. As Archimedes has remarked, great credit is due to Democritus for his conjecture since this made proof much easier. Eudoxes... a pupil of Plato, subsequently gave a rigorous proof. Surely the labor or writing limited his manuscript to a few copies; none has survived. In those days editions did not run to thousands or hundreds of thousands of copies as modern books—especially, bad books—do. However, the substance of what he wrote is nevertheless available to us.... Euclid's great achievement was the systematization of the works of his predecessors. The Elements preserve several of Eudoxes' proofs.
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George Pólya 35
Hungarian mathematician 1887–1985Related quotes
“One Book is enough, but a thousand books is not too many!”
Martin Luther
(1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
“Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then another thousand, then a second hundred, then yet another thousand, then a hundred.”
Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
V, lines 8–7
Carmina
“Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.”
Source: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Jennifer Shahade
(1980) chess player
On the title of her book Chess Bitch : Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport
Gothamist interview (2006)
J.A. Hobson
(1858–1940) English economist, social scientist and critic of imperialism
Preface to the Revised Edition (October, 1906)
The Evolution of Modern Capitalism: A Study of Machine Production (1906)
Book V, Introduction
Variant translation: It may well wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer.
As quoted in The Martyrs of Science; or, the Lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler (1841) by David Brewster, p. 197. This has sometimes been misquoted as "It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer."
Variant translation: I feel carried away and possessed by an unutterable rapture over the divine spectacle of heavenly harmony... I write a book for the present time, or for posterity. It is all the same to me. It may wait a hundred years for its readers, as God has also waited six thousand years for an onlooker.
As quoted in Calculus. Multivariable (2006) by Steven G. Krantz and Brian E. Blank. p. 126
Variant translation: I am stealing the golden vessels of the Egyptians to build a tabernacle to my God from them, far far away from the boundaries of Egypt. If you forgive me, I shall rejoice.; if you are enraged with me, I shall bear it. See, I cast the die, and I write the book. Whether it is to be read by the people of the present or of the future makes no difference: let it await its reader for a hundred years, if God himself has stood ready for six thousand years for one to study him.
Unsourced translation
Harmonices Mundi (1618)
Context: Now because 18 months ago the first dawn, 3 months ago broad daylight but a very few days ago the full sun of the most highly remarkable spectacle has risen — nothing holds me back. I can give myself up to the sacred frenzy, I can have the insolence to make a full confession to mortal men that I have stolen the golden vessel of the Egyptians to make from them a tabernacle for my God far from the confines of the land of Egypt. If you forgive me I shall rejoice; if you are angry, I shall bear it; I am indeed casting the die and writing the book, either for my contemporaries or for posterity to read, it matters not which: let the book await its reader for a hundred years; God himself has waited six thousand years for his work to be seen.
“When you publish a book, it’s the world’s book. The world edits it.”
Philip Roth
(1933–2018) American novelist
"A Visit with Philip Roth," interview with James Atlas, The New York Times Book Review (2 September 1979), p. BR1