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Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.—ADDISON, The Spectator
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Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.—BACON, Of Studies
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Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.—BACON, Proposition touching Amendment of Laws
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Worthy books
Are not companions—they are solitudes:
We lose ourselves in them and all our cares.—PHILIP J. BAILEY, Festus
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Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore!—H. W. BEECHER, Star Papers
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Nothing marks the increasing wealth of our times and the growth of the public mind toward refinement, more than the demand for books.—H. W. BEECHER, Star Papers
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Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book!—Bible, Job 19:23
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My desire is . . . that mine adversary had written a book.—Bible, Job 31:35
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How could an actual person fit into the covers of a book? The book is not a continent, not a definite geographical measure, it cannot contain so huge a thing as an actual full-size person. Any person has to be scaled by eliminations to fit the book world.—PEARL BUCK, Advice to Unborn Novelists
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If the whole be greater than a part, a whole man must be greater than that part of him which is found in a book.—BULWER-LYTTON, Caxtonia
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Some books are lies frae end to end.—BURNS, Death and Dr. Hornbook
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I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey.—JOHN BURROUGHS, The Summit of the Years
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'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;
A book's a book, although there's nothin' in't.—BYRON, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers
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All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.—CARLYLE, Heroes & Hero-Worship
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In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time: the articulate audible voice of the past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.—CARLYLE, Heroes & Hero-Worship
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May blessings be upon the head of Cadmus or the Phoenicians, or whoever invented books!—CARLYLE
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He that publishes a book runs a very great hazard since nothing can be more impossible than to compose one that may secure the approbation of every reader.—CERVANTES, Don Quixote
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Books are the true levelers. They give to all who faithfully use them the society, the spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our race.—W. E. CHANNING
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The book originated in the suggestion of a publisher; as many more good books have done than the arrogance of the man of letters is commonly inclined to admit.—G. K. CHESTERTON, Preface to Pickwick Papers
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Books cannot always please, however good;
Minds are not ever craving for their food.—GEORGE CRABBE, The Borough
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There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.—DICKENS, Oliver Twist
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It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.—CONAN DOYLE, Through the Magic Door
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That book is good
Which puts me in a working mood.
Unless to Thought is added Will,
Apollo is an imbecile.—EMERSON, The Poet
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By burning Luther's books you may rid your book-shelves of him, but you will not rid men's minds of him.—ERASMUS
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I would define a book as a work of magic whence escape all kinds of images to trouble the souls and change the hearts of men.—ANATOLE FRANCE
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You must know I've resolved and agreed
My books from my room not to lend,
But you may sit by my fire and read.—CAROLINE H. GILMAN, One Good Turn Deserves Another
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He might be a very clever man by nature for aught I know, but he laid so many books upon his head that his brains could not move.—ROBERT HALL
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The readers and the hearers like my books,
But yet some writers cannot them digest;
But what care I? for when I make a feast
I would my guests should praise it, not the cooks.—SIR JOHN HARRINGTON, Epigrams
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Books without the knowledge of life are useless; for what should books teach but the art of living.—SAMUEL JOHNSON
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Books think for me.—CHARLES LAMB, Detached Thoughts on Books &
Reading
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To be strong-backed and neat-bound is the desideratum of a volume. Magnificence comes after.—CHARLES LAMB, Detached Thoughts on Books &
Reading
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Borrowers of books—those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes.—CHARLES LAMB, The Two Races of Men
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A presentation copy . . . is a copy of a book which does not sell, sent you by the author, with his foolish autograph at the beginning of it; for which, if a stranger, he only demands your friendship; if a brother author, he expects a book of yours, which does not sell, in return.—CHARLES LAMB, Popular Fallacies
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When others fail him, the wise man looks
To the sure companionship of books.—ANDREW LANG, Old Friends
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You can cover a great deal of country in books.—ANDREW LANG, To the Gentle Reader
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The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books.—LONGFELLOW, Morituri Salutamus
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Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal theme! We expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.—HERMAN MELVILLE, Moby Dick
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God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draught—nay, but the draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!—HERMAN MELVILLE, Moby Dick
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Deep vers'd in books, and shallow in himself.—MILTON, Paradise Regained
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As good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself.—MILTON, Areopagitica
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A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.—MILTON, Areopagitica
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There are some books which cannot be adequately reviewed for twenty or thirty years after they come out.—JOHN MORLEY, Recollections
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A book that remains shut, is but a block.—Proverb
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After love, book collecting is the most exhilarating sport of all.—A. S. W. ROSENBACH, A Book Hunter's Holiday
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He hath not fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he bath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink.—SHAKESPEARE, Love's Labour's Lost
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You two are bookmen.—SHAKESPEARE, Love's Labour's Lost
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Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me
From mine own library with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.—SHAKESPEARE, The Tempest
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The great and good do not die even in this world Embalmed in books, their spirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an intellect to which one still listens.—SAMUEL SMILES, Character
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Some books are drenched sands
On which a great soul's wealth lies all in heaps,
Like a wrecked argosy.—ALEXANDER SMITH, A Life Drama
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A best-seller is the gilded tomb of a mediocre talent.—LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH,
Afterthoughts
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Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life.—STEVENSON, Virginibus Puerisque
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Books, the children of the brain.—SWIFT, Tale of a Tub
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Books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of ages through which they have passed.—SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE, Ancient & Modern Learning
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A good book is the best of
friends, the same today and for ever.—MARTIN TUPPER, Of Reading
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Man builds no structure which outlives a book.—E. F. WARE, The Book
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Camerado, this is no book,
Who touches this touches a man.—WALT WHITMAN, So Long!
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There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.—OSCAR WILDE, The Picture of Dorian Gray
