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.
Our high respect for a well-read man is praise enough of literature.
Many readers judge of the power of a book by the shock it gives their feelings.
It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer.
A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library. The library is the university.
Books should to one of these four ends conduce,
For wisdom, piety, delight, or use.
Reading … is an activity subsequent to writing: more resigned, more civil, more intellectual.
Some books are drenchèd sands
On which a great soul’s wealth lies all in heaps,
Like a wrecked argosy.
Life-transforming ideas have always come to me through books.