“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
“Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.”
“One always tends to overpraise a long book, because one has got through it.”
“Reading makes a full man, meditation a profound man, discourse a clear man.”
“Be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours.”
“The best effect of any book, is that it excites the reader to self-activity.”
“The tools I need for my work are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey.”
“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.”
“No one can read with profit that which he cannot learn to read with pleasure.”
“It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life.”
“Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.”
“A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public with his pants down.”
“To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them.”
“O, let my books be then the eloquence and dumb presages of my speaking breast.”
“The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.”
“This book is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with great force.”
“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.”
“He has left off reading altogether, to the great improvement of his originality.”
“It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books.”
“Reading is not a duty, and has consequently no business to be made disagreeable.”
“There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing.”
“When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.”
“You should read books like you take medicine, by advice, and not by advertisement.”
“A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.”
“Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can't expect an angel to look out.”
“How can you dare teach a man to read until you've taught him everything else first?”
“Man ceased to be an ape, vanquished the ape, on the day the first book was written.”
“To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.”
“My books are water; those of the great geniuses are wine -- everybody drinks water.”
“The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no limit to this fever for writing.”