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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.

Random quote on Books

Most quoted on books:

Whoever said, he/she is a proud non-reader of books is living in oblivion.

Gaurav Sharma World Book Day (2018)

The world is like a book in which the creative Trinity shines, manifests itself in sensible forms and is read.

Bonaventure

A book is a machine to think with, but it need not, therefore, usurp the functions either of the bellows or the locomotive.

I. A. Richards Principles of Literary Criticism (1924)

Reading for writers is like training for athletes.

Linda Sue Park A Long Walk to Water (2010)

Ever since my first novel, people have had quite a snippy vibe about YA, and it’s almost like: ‘Do you think one day you’ll write a real book?’…

Juno Dawson

This book is from the Super-Mind A fast dictated gift sublime, The Message it contains will find Full confirmation in due time.

Gopi Krishna The Way to Self Knowledge (1984)

You can’t judge a book while it’s on fire.

Ron English Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)

This book is an attempt to explain cognition—thought, perception, emotion, experience—in terms of a machine, that is, using a cognitive architecture.

Joscha Bach Principles of Synthetic Intelligence PSI (2009)

Here you are invited into the direct experience of that timeless reality through the method of self-inquiry, which forms the essence of this book.

Mooji Greater than Sky, Vaster than Space (2018)

Allow this book to take you on a journey that will capture both your head and your heart.

Irene Sabatini

Now the books are arranged according to which characters I believe ought to be talking to each other.

Sarah Ladipo Manyika Like A Mule Bringing Ice Cream To The Sun (2016)

“Don't read what everyone else is reading. Check them out later, cautiously.”

Ben Okri

Young people should continue to lead their own learning from the people they meet, the events they go to, and the books they read.

Lillian Nkosazana Moremi

I found it so absorbing, I love reading, it came easy to me.

Abiola Odejide

This book is about linking the little things we see every day with the big world we live in.

Helen Czerski Storm in a Teacup (2016)

Each day and night of those weeks could fill a book, if only the pen could take on this burden of despair and helpless loneliness.

Ida Fink A Scrap of Time and Other Stories (1985)

Usually, when you read war literature, they’re trying to present what they went through to someone who wasn’t there.

Alice Winn

We first of all have to cultivate the habit of reading, before more people would be motivated to write.

Farida Bedwei

Writing and reading has always come with this colonial layer, even when we are reading local languages typeset using roman characters.

Nontsikelelo Mutiti

I appreciate the power of the internet in promoting literature

Tolu Ogunlesi

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