Why read books?

"To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life." - W. Somerset MAUGHAM

"It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own." - Sir Arthur Conan DOYLE

If well used, books are the best of all things; if abused, among the worst. - EMERSON

"Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house." - H. Ward BEECHER

"There's nothing to match curling up with a good book when there's a repair job to be done around the house." - Joe RYAN

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho MARX

"The end of reading is not more books, but more life." - Holbrook JACKSON

"People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading." - Logan Pearsall SMITH

"Never judge a book by its movie." - J. W. EAGAN

If the riches of the Indies, or the crowns of all the kingdom of Europe, were laid at my feet in exchange for my love of reading, I would spurn them all. - Francois FENELON

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life. - Mortimer J. ADLER

A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors. - Henry Ward BEECHER

"A room without books is like a body without a soul." - CICERO

"No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting." - Lady Mary Wortley MONTAGU

"I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see." - John BURROUGH

The real risks for any artist are taken...in pushing the work to the limits of what is possible, in the attempt to increase the sum of what it is possible to think. Books become good when they go to this edge and risk falling over it--when they endanger the artist by reason of what he has, or has not, artistically dared. - Salman RUSHDIE

All books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time. - John RUSKIN

Wear the old coat and buy the new book. [or the best book!] - Austin PHELPS

"Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year." - Horace MANN (1796 - 1859)

One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful, even if it is only falling ash. - Norman MACLEAN, A River Runs Through It

My main reason for adopting literature as a profession was that, as the author is never seen by his clients, he need not dress respectably. - George Bernard SHAW (1856 - 1950)

Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom. - William SHAKESPEARE (1564 - 1616), "The Tempest", Act 1 scene 2

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. - Henry David THOREAU (1817 - 1862), Walden: Reading, 1854

The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them. - Mark TWAIN (1835 - 1910)

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words. - Johann Wolfgang von GOETHE (1749 - 1832)

You think your pains and heartbreaks are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who have ever been alive. - James BALDWIN

Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand. - Ezra POUND

In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity. - Ralph Waldo EMERSON (1803 - 1882), Letters and Social Aims: Quotation and Originality, 1876

To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry. - Gaston BACHELARD

"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers. - Charles W. ELIOT, The Happy Life, 1896

"I had just taken to reading. I had just discovered the art of leaving my body to sit impassive in a crumpled up attitude in a chair or sofa, while I wandered over the hills and far away in novel company and new scenes... My world began to expand very rapidly,... the reading habit had got me securely.'' - H. G. Wells

When I get a little money, I buy books. If there's anything left over, I buy food and clothing. - Erasmus

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. Joseph Addison

I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library. - Jorge Luis Borges

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