The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Books50 quotes
A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. — Franz Kafka · 1904When you reread a classic you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before. — Clifton Fadiman · 1957From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. — Benjamin Franklin · 1790The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame. — Oscar Wilde · 1891A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone. — Tyrion Lannister · 2011If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. — Haruki Murakami · 1987All 50 quotes →Power of literature10 quotes
A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. — Franz Kafka · 1904When you reread a classic you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before. — Clifton Fadiman · 1957Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are. — John Milton · 1644The reading of good books is like a conversation with the best men of past centuries-in fact like a prepared conversation, in which they reveal only the best of their thoughts. — Rene Descartes · 1637Reach for the book: It is a weapon. — Bertolt Brecht · 1935A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say. — Italo Calvino · 1981All 10 quotes →Reading9 quotes
From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. — Benjamin Franklin · 1790A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone. — Tyrion Lannister · 2011I discovered me in the library. — Ray Bradbury · 2010There is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — Jane Austen · 1813A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good. — Samuel Johnson · 1763Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. — Francis Bacon · 1625All 9 quotes →Tsundoku4 quotes
From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. — Benjamin Franklin · 1790What is this obsession people have with books? They put them in their houses-like they’re trophies. What do you need it for after you read it? — Jerry Seinfeld · 1991After love, book collecting is the most exhilarating sport of all. — A.S.W. Rosenbach · 1936To desire to have many books, and never to use them, is like a childe that will have a candle burning by him all the while he is sleeping. — Henry Peacham · 1622Self-discovery3 quotes
A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. — Franz Kafka · 1904I discovered me in the library. — Ray Bradbury · 2010Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer's work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book. The reader's recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book's truth. — Marcel Proust · 1922Education2 quotes
My alma mater was books. — Malcolm X · 1965Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. — Ecclesiastes 12:12 · 931 BCLibraries2 quotes
I discovered me in the library. — Ray Bradbury · 2010Medicine for the soul.Timing2 quotes
An accident of timing makes the book in question indelible. — Colson Whitehead · 2005The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves. — E.M. Forster · 1944Bad books1 quote
Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books. — John Ruskin · 1864Bibliophilia1 quote
From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. — Benjamin Franklin · 1790Collective memory1 quote
Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered. — W.H. Auden · 1962Culture1 quote
You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. — Ray Bradbury · 1993Egypt1 quote
There are two perfumes to a book. If a book is new it smells great. If a book is old, it smells even better. It smells like ancient Egypt. — Ray Bradbury · 2010Friends1 quote
Age, that Age appeared
to be best in four things: Old
Wood best to burn, Old Wine to drink, Old
Friends to trust, and old Authors to read. — Francis Bacon · 1625Gardens1 quote
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. — Cicero · 44 BCIgnorance of history1 quote
The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency-the belief that the here and now is all there is. — Allan Bloom · 1987Influences1 quote
The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves. — E.M. Forster · 1944Information overload1 quote
Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. — Ecclesiastes 12:12 · 931 BCLearning1 quote
Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. — Ecclesiastes 12:12 · 931 BCLife1 quote
Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life. — Robert Louis Stevenson · 1881Life's necessities1 quote
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. — Cicero · 44 BCLiterature1 quote
A novel is an impression, not an argument. — Thomas Hardy · 1891Moralism1 quote
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame. — Oscar Wilde · 1891Morality1 quote
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame. — Oscar Wilde · 1891Novels1 quote
A novel is an impression, not an argument. — Thomas Hardy · 1891Old things1 quote
Age, that Age appeared
to be best in four things: Old
Wood best to burn, Old Wine to drink, Old
Friends to trust, and old Authors to read. — Francis Bacon · 1625Serendipity1 quote
An accident of timing makes the book in question indelible. — Colson Whitehead · 2005Smells1 quote
There are two perfumes to a book. If a book is new it smells great. If a book is old, it smells even better. It smells like ancient Egypt. — Ray Bradbury · 2010TV1 quote
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall. — Roald Dahl · 1964