Books Quotes
Samuel Johnson is on this page more than once for good reason. In The Rambler (1750) he wrote that no place gives a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library. Boswell (1791) has him saying that a man ought to read just as inclination leads him, because what he reads as a task will do him little good. Alberto Manguel, Emerson and Northrop Frye are among the most-quoted writers here, which is what you would expect from people who spent their working lives reading.
Two entries are flagged as misattributed. The quip about a manuscript that is both good and original, with the good parts not original and the original parts not good, is credited to Johnson. “Rommel, you magnificent bastard! I read your book!” is credited to General Patton.
No one can control what minds do when reading; it is entirely private.
It’s more fun to watch the entertainment put out by the media than to read a sober essay
We have not read an author till we have seen his object, whatever it may be, as he saw it.
What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.
All books grow homilies by time; they are
Temples, at once, and Landmarks.