Books Proverbs

Sayings about Books

See to it that you have many books and many friends — but be sure they are good ones. ~ Spanish Proverb

A book is like a garden carried in the pocket. ~ Arabian Proverb

Books and friends should be few but good.~ Traditional Proverb

If a fool borrows a book cut off his hand; but cut off both hands of the fool who brings it back. ~ Iranian Proverb

When you have read a book for the first time, you get to know a friend; read it for a second time and you meet an old friend. ~ Chinese Proverb

Teachers die, but books live on. ~ Dutch Proverb

Better than the ignorant are those who read books; better still are those who retain what they read; even better are those who understand it; the best of all are those who go to work. ~ Indian Proverb

There’s no thief like a bad book. ~ Italian Proverb

Every age has its book. ~ Arabian Proverb

Knowledge without wisdom is a load of books on the back of an ass. ~ Japanese Proverb

Old truths, old laws, old friends, old books, and old wine are best. ~ Polish Proverb

Borrowed wives, like borrowed books, are seldom returned. ~ American Proverb

Reading books removes sorrows from the heart. ~ Moroccan Proverb

A good book praises itself. ~ German Proverb

The world is the book of women. ~ French Proverb

The sight of books removes sorrows from the heart.~ African Proverb

Every book must be chewed to get out its juice. ~ Chinese Proverb

It is better to be without a book than to believe it entirely. ~ Chinese Proverb

Unread books make hollow minds. ~ Chinese Proverb

Beware of a man of one book. ~ English Proverb

A wicked book cannot repent. ~ Traditional Proverb

Scholars talk books, butchers talk pigs. ~ Chinese Proverb

Don’t judge a book by its cover. ~ English Proverb

Walls are the notebooks of fools. ~ Arabian Proverb

A pack of cards is the devil’s prayer book. ~ German Proverb

Whoever writes a book, should be ready to accept criticism. ~ Iraqi Proverb

Years know more than books. ~ American Proverb

A donkey that carries a lot of books is not necessarily learned. ~ Danish Proverb

A wise man without a book is like a workman with no tools. ~ Moroccan Proverb

A book is a good friend when it lays bare the errors of the past. ~ Indian Proverb

A man is happy when he has books, but happier still when he does not need them. ~ Chinese Proverb

It is better to be entirely without a book than to believe it entirely. ~ Chinese Proverb

The more sins you confess, the more books you will sell. ~ American Proverb

If your books are not read, your descendants will be ignorant. ~ Chinese Proverb

Quotations about Books

Good books are true friends. ~ Francis Bacon

Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own. ~ William Hazlitt

Begin to read a book that will help you move toward your dream. ~ Les Brown

Let your bookcases and your shelves be your gardens and your pleasure-grounds. Pluck the fruit that grows therein, gather the roses, the spices, and the myrrh. ~ Judah Ibn Tibbon

Bread of flour is good; but there is bread, sweet as honey, if we would eat it, in a good book. ~ John Ruskin

‘Tis the good reader that makes the good book. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

He who loveth a book will never want a faithful friend, a wholesome counsellor, a cheerful companion, or an effectual comforter. ~ Isaac Barrow

If there’s a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it. ~ Toni Morrison

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. ~ Mark Twain

The multitude of books is making us ignorant. ~ Voltaire

The best books are those which lift us to a higher plane where we breathe a purer atmosphere. ~ Orison Swett Marden

That is a good book which is opened with expectation and closed with profit. ~ Amos Bronson Alcott

Never judge a book by its movie. ~ J. W. Eagan

No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot. ~ Charles Dickens

There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book; books are well written or badly written. ~ Oscar Wilde

Books support us in our solitude and keep us from being a burden to ourselves. ~ Jeremy Collier

There’s nothing wrong with reading a book you love over and over. When you do, the words get inside you, become a part of you, in a way that words in a book you’ve read only once can’t. ~ Gail Carson Levine

Except a living man there is nothing more wonderful than a book! A message to us from the dead, – from human souls whom we never saw, who lived perhaps thousands of miles away; and yet these, on those little sheets of paper, speak to us, teach us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers. ~ Charles Kingsley

Books are men of higher stature; the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear. ~ E.S. Barrett

A book is a garden; a book is an orchard; a book is a storehouse; a book is a party. It is company by the way; it is a counselor; it is a multitude of counselors. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, and a multitude of counselors. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream. ~ Thomas Carlyle

Reading useless books is like sowing bad seed–your trouble does not reward you. ~ Edward Counsel

That is a good book which is opened with expectation, and closed with delight and profit. ~ Amos Bronson Alcott

A good book has no ending. ~ R.D. Cumming

A good book is fruitful of other books; it perpetuates its fame from age to age, and makes eras in the lives of its readers. ~ Amos Bronson Alcott

A house without books is like a room without windows. ~ Heinrich Mann

No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

Books are embalmed minds. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

One must always be careful of books … and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us. ~ Cassandra Clare

The greatest advantage of books does not always come from what we remember of them, but from their suggestiveness. A good book often serves as a match to light the dormant power within us. ~ Orison Swett Marden

Books are not men and yet they stay alive. ~ Stephen Vincent Benet

Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

Books are a uniquely portable magic. ~ Stephen King

The covers of this book are too far apart. ~ Ambrose Bierce

I would never read a book if it were possible for me to talk half an hour with the man who wrote it. ~ Woodrow Wilson

A good title is the title of a successful book. ~ Raymond Chandler

Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind. ~ James Russell Lowell

The true University of these days is a collection of Books. ~ Thomas Carlyle

Books succeed, and lives fail. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

He fed his spirit with the bread of books. ~ Edwin Markham

A book is like a money-changer: it pays you back in another form what you brint to it. ~ Austin O’Malley

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. ~ Joseph Brodsky

You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. ~ Ray Bradbury

The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it. ~ James Bryce

A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. ~ John Milton

Books are the training weights of the mind. ~ Epictetus

Without books God is silent, justice dormant, natural science at a stand, philosophy lame, letters dumb, and all things involved in Cimmerian dark-ness. ~ Thomas Bartholin

Parents should leave books lying around marked “forbidden” if they want their children to read. ~ Doris Lessing

If you want to read a perfect book there is only one way: write it. ~ Ambrose Bierce

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. ~ Francis Bacon

Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled “This could change your life.” ~ Helen Exley

You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend. ~ Paul Sweeney

The world has been printing books for 450 years, and yet gunpowder still has a wider circulation. Never mind! Printer’s ink is the greater explosive: it will win. ~ Christopher Morley

A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us. ~ W. H. Auden

The reading of a fine book is an uninterrupted dialogue in which the book speaks and our soul replies. ~ Andre Maurois

Books, like bricks, depend upon each other for support. ~ Edward Counsel

A good book is the purest essence of a human soul. ~ Thomas Carlyle

But of what use will my book be when it is finished? ~ James Boswell

I always assume that a good book is more intelligent than its author. It can say things that the writer is not aware of. ~ Umberto Eco

Books are true friends that will never flatter nor dissemble: be you but true to yourself, and you shall need no other comfort. ~ Francis Bacon

Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore? ~ Henry Ward Beecher

Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason–they made no such demand upon those who wrote them. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts. ~ Charles Dickens

A book may be compared to your neighbor: if it be good, it cannot last too long; if bad, you cannot get rid of it too early. ~ Rupert Brooke

No one ever reads a book. He reads himself through books. ~ Romain Rolland

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. ~ Haruki Murakami

Books are my friends, my companions. They make me laugh and cry and find meaning in life. ~ Christopher Paolini