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.
Literature is not a subject of study, but an object of study.
Facts are not science — as the dictionary is not literature.
My ultimate vision is always positive. Hasty reading allows of rash judgments.
The world is the book where the eternal Wisdom wrote its own concepts
One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.
All literature is contemporary to the reader who knows how to read.
The genuine reader is the one who reads for pleasure the books that others only study.
The essence of Tony Joseph's book is the new "genetic evidence".
I was never able to pray
but let me inscribe my name
in the book of waves.
The poem is an original and unique creation, but it is reading and recitation: participation.