Reading quotes
6.6K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside reading — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"You may go on reading any number of books on Meditation. They can only tell you ‘Realize the Self’. The Self cannot be found in books. You have to find it for yourself in yourself."
"Reading is very good. And you can quote me!"
"I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else."
"Every reader, if he has a strong mind, reads himself into the book, and amalgamates his thoughts with those of the author."
"I get clarity through quiet time, reflection, reading, and meditation. Finding the space between thoughts gives me the energy to take on new challenges with enthusiasm."
"I slipped the book into my pocket. I assure you to leave off reading was like tearing myself away from the shelter of an old and solid friendship."
"I can't imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once."
"Reading nurtures the soul, and an enlightened friend brings it solace."
"The man who has not the habit of reading is imprisoned in his immediate world."
"Some of the most famous books are the least worth reading. Their fame was due to their having done something that needed to be doing in their day. The work is done and the virtue of the book has expired."
"When the Day of Judgment dawns and people, great and small, come marching in to receive their heavenly rewards, the Almighty will gaze upon the mere bookworms and say to Peter, “Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them. They have loved reading."
"I started writing while I was a little boy. Maybe it's because I was reading a lot of books I admired, and thought that I would like to write something like that someday. Also, my love for good writing pushed me."
"Easy reading is damn hard writing."
"We of this age have discovered a shorter, and more prudent method to become scholars and wits, without the fatigue of reading or of thinking."
"I don't want people to think that they can attain realization simply by listening to others or by reading books. They must practice what they read and hear."
"Education could be a great vehicle for gender equity. It allows people to see what your rights are by reading. Quite often women, for example, may have rights that they are not in the position to actually make use of."
"I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life."
"The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story."
"A lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge."
"But really, it was reading that led me to writing. And in particular, reading the American classics like Twain who taught me at an early age that ordinary lives of ordinary people can be made into high art."
