Quotes about Books

I love libraries. I love books. There is something sacred, I think, about a great library because it represents the preservation of the wisdom, the learning, the pondering, of men and women of all the ages accumulated together under one roof to which we can have access as our needs require.

A good book, in the language of the book-sellers, is a salable one; in that of the curious, a scarce one; in that of men of sense, a useful and instructive one.

Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests, and mines, and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

I wasn't too good at playing games, but I did love reading very much and would have spent my life at it. I had human angels, fortunately for me, to guide me in the choice of the books which, while being entertaining, nourished both my heart and my mind.

The lack of power to take joy in outdoor nature is as real a misfortune as the lack of power to take joy in books

Books are almost as individual as friends. There is no earthly use in laying down general laws about them. Some meet the needs of one person, and some of another; and each person should beware of the booklover's besetting sin, of what Mr. Edgar Allan Poe calls 'the mad pride of intellectuality,' taking the shape of arrogant pity for the man who does not like the same kind of books.

Books are all very well in their way, and we love them at Sagamore Hill; but children are better than books.

In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro. (Everywhere I have sought peace and not found it, except in a corner with a book.)

Nergens heb ik meer rust gevonden dan in bossen en boeken.

Everywhere I have sought peace and not found it, except in a corner with a book.

If he shall not lose his reward, who gives a cup of cold water to his thirst neighbor, what will not be the reward for those who, by putting good books into the hands of those neighbors, open to them the fountains of eternal life?"

BEDE. But though there were four Evangelists, yet what they wrote is not so much four Gospels, as one true harmony of four books. (non occ.) For as two verses having the same substance, but different words and different metre, yet contain one and the same matter, so the books of the Evangelists, though four in number, yet contain one Gospel, teaching one doctrine of the Catholic faith.