books - quotes

John Milton, 1608-1674

was an English poet

Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.

Bible

Of making many books there is no end, and much study is wearisome to the flesh.

Sydney Smith, 1771-1845

was an English essayist

Live always in the best company when you read.

Joseph Addison, 1672-1719

was an English essayist, poet, and politician

Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.

Albert Einstein, 1879-1955

was an US (German-born) physicist

Isn't it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow?

James Baldwin, 1924-1987

was an US author

You think your pains and heartbreaks are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who have ever been alive.