Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! And if one reads profitably, one would realize how much stupid stuff the vulgar herd is content to swallow every day.
The multitude of books is making us ignorant.
I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.
Prejudice is opinion without judgement.
You despise books; you whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure or indolence; but remember that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books.
I keep to old books, for they teach me something; from the new I learn very little.
A small number of choice books are sufficient.
I never approved either the errors of his book, or the trivial truths he so vigorously laid down. I have, however, stoutly taken his side when absurd men have condemned him for these same truths.
Never having been able to succeed in the world, he took his revenge by speaking ill of it.
All the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books.
It is with books as with the fires of our grates, everybody borrows a light from his neighbor to kindle his own, which in turn is communicated to others, and each partakes of all.
It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part.
It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books.
A classic is a book that doesn’t have to be written again.
When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books. You will be reading meanings.
When I was a kid, a book I read advised young artist to be themselves. That decided it for me. I was a corny kind of guy, so I went in for corn.
I think of a child’s mind as a blank book. During the first years of his life, much will be written on the pages. The quality of that writing will affect his life profoundly.
The real war will never get in the books.
The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.
So here I sit in the early candle-light of old age-I and my book-casting backward glances over out travel’d road.