Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,808 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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Books and reading
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“I love nice long walks, inspirational novels of influential people. I'm reading Kennedy - An Unfinished Life at the moment. And nothing beats listening to music and having tea with friends.”
Sangeeta Niranjan wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“hurts I have are my fault but I'm sure gonna learn from it and hopefully anyone reading this will too. the lesson: stay aware on a bicycle and look up the road in front of you at all times to make sure you can deal w/what's coming and the condition of the road you're gonna be rolling down!”
Mike Watt (born 1957) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement on bicycling safety after an accident, on his blog "a hoot and a holler" (20 December 2003).
“You don't know what I'm all about / Like killing cops and reading Kerouac”
Blake Schwarzenbach (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The cinema...may have a specific beauty of its own, but it does not permit that constant re-reading, that meditative brooding, those turning-back to passages heavily charged with meaning, which form the special pleasure of the novel-reader.”
André Maurois (1885–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People don't get their morality from their reading matter: they bring their morality to it.”
Clive James (1939–2019) said by 2019 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those who know only scriptures know nothing. To know is to be. I know what I am talking about; it is not from reading, or hearsay.”
Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal.”
Alice Cooper (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My argument is that War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading.”
Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) said by 1928 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Although Lewis Carroll thought of The Hunting of the Snark as a nonsense ballad for children, it is hard to imagine—in fact one shudders to imagine—a child of today reading and enjoying it.”
Martin Gardner (1914–2010) first seen 1962 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Annotated Snark (1962), Introduction, p. 15
“I made up my mind after reading the lessons of history never to dream of a vast world-empire. For what has become of all those so-called world-empires? Alexander, Napoleon and all such great captains bathed themselves in blood, and yet left behind them subjugated peoples, who, after those great men had died, rose in revolt and ruined the Empires they had created.”
Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) said by 1941 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By the way, I sold another story, same company. “Wolfshead” twentyfive pages $40.00. After reading it, I’m not altogether sure I wasnt off my noodler when I wrote it.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith (October 9, 1925)
“Reading Heidegger against the grain, one discovers a thinker who was, at some points, strangely close to communism.”
Slavoj Žižek (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These men traveling down to the City in the morning, reading their newspapers or staring at advertisements above the opposite seats, they have no doubt of who they are. Inscribe on the placard in place of the advertisement for corn-plasters, Elliot's lines: We are the hollow men”
Colin Wilson (1931–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sexual activity is driven by the same aims and motives as reading poetry or listening to music: to escape the limitations imposed by the need for particularity in the consciousness.”
Colin Wilson (1931–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In reading Jung's account of his cases, it is impossible not to be aware that his success was due partly to an element of ruthlessness; he was dominated by curiosity rather than compassion.”
Colin Wilson (1931–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Be thou never without something to do; be reading, or writing, or praying, or meditating, or doing something that is useful to the community.”
Thomas à Kempis (1379–1471) said by 1471 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Other things being equal, a person beginning the spiritual life with a taste for reading has a much greater chance both of advancing and of persevering than one who is destitute of such a taste. Experience shows that it is almost equal to a grace. The hardest thing in the world is to think, that is, to think real thought.”
Frederick William Faber (1814–1863) said by 1863 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”
Richard Steele (1671–1729) first seen 1710 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Tatler, no. 147 (18 March 1710)
“You can’t become a saint by taking dope, stealing your friends’ typewriters, giving girls chancres, not supporting your wife and children, and then reading St. John of the Cross. All of that, when it’s happened before, has typified the collapse of civilization … and today the social fabric is falling apart so fast, it makes your head swim.”
Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982) said by 1982 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was giving a reading at some university. Down in the front row of the auditorium was a young lady in a leather microskirt and a leather microbolero, tied with a leather bootlace, and nothing else whatever. I said, "I have an extremely wide repertory. What would you like — sex, revolution, or mysticism?" She looked up and said quietly, "What’s the difference?”
Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982) said by 1982 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“May I therefore acknowledge the tender glow of health induced by reading, as I sat here in the morning sun, the flattering attention paid me by your gentleman of ready wreath and quick biography!”
James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) first seen 1902 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: After a Dutch newspaper prematurely! reported his death in 1902
“If we were in the habit of reading poets their obscurity would not matter; and, once we are out of the habit, their clarity does not help.”
Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The writer does not get from his work as he writes and reads it the same aesthetic shock that the reader does; and since the writer is so accustomed to reading other stories, and having them produce a decided effect upon him, he is disquieted at not being equally affected by his own.”
Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ten Books," The Southern Review (Autumn 1935), p. 8
“I love to cook. I spend weekends reading cookbooks-it’s really my relaxation.”
Ali Larter (born 1976) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am convinced, Yorick, continued my father, half reading and half discoursing, that there is a Northwest Passage to the intellectual world; and that the soul of man has shorter ways of going to work, in furnishing itself with knowledge and instruction, than we generally take with it.”
Laurence Sterne (1713–1768) said by 1768 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you mean to know yourself, interline such of these aphorisms as affect you agreeably in reading, and set a mark to such as left a sense of uneasiness with you; and then show your copy to whom you please.”
Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) said by 1801 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Discussion groups tend to keep covering the same ground over and over again, because people forget what was said before. I think the invention of the Frequently Asked Questions, the FAQ, was a response to that. A lot of times just reading the FAQ is more valuable than joining the discussion group.”
Ward Cunningham (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I love computer graphics, but every system I've seen to try to turn programming into pictures has lost that syntactic element. There's something about syntax that makes it very precise for reading. I love photography. A photograph will tell a story. But words tell a story even better. Words are more versatile. You can paint a verbal picture that's much richer than you can photograph.”
Ward Cunningham (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let's not worry about what somebody reading the code tomorrow is going to think. Let's not worry about whether it's efficient. Let's not even worry about whether it will work. Let's just write the simplest thing that could possibly work.”
Ward Cunningham (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I search for secrets and answers, no matter how bizarre, like an old woman reading tea-leaves.”
J. M. Coetzee (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What gunpowder did for war, the printing press has done for the mind, and the statesman is no longer clad in the steel of special education, but every reading man is his judge.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1852 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Anti-Slavery Speech (January 1852), in The Works of Wendell Phillips (1902), pp. 22-23
“My notion about any artist is that we honor him best by reading him, by playing his music, by seeing his plays or by looking at his pictures. We don't need to fall all over ourselves with adjectives and epithets. Let's play him more.”
Jacques Barzun (1907–2012) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview by John C. Tibbetts, at Scribner's, New York (December 4, 1986)
“I am not collecting copies of the cheaper editions of Omar Khayyám. I gave the last four that I received to the lift-boy, and I like to think of him reading them, with FitzGerald's notes, to his aged mother. Lift-boys always have aged mothers; shows such nice feeling on their part, I think.”
Saki (1870–1916) said by 1916 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A reading-machine, always wound up and going, He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing.”
James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reading is, and what shifts we make to escape thinking. There is no bore we dread being left alone with so much as our own minds.”
James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And as long as the world lasts, all who want to make progress in righteousness will come to Israel for inspiration, as to the people who have had the sense for righteousness most glowing and strongest; and in hearing and reading the words Israel has uttered for us, carers for conduct will find a glow and a force they could find nowhere else.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.”
Edvard Munch (1863–1944) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Munch's text (1889) 'Impressions from a ballroom, New Year's Eve in St. Cloud' - also known as 'The St. Cloud Manifesto'
“A historian should "go on reading (...) until you can hear people talking. Then you will understand why things happened as they did.”
G. M. Young (1882–1959) said by 1959 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Captain Littlepage had overset his mind with too much reading.”
Sarah Orne Jewett (1849–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tact is after all a kind of mind-reading.”
Sarah Orne Jewett (1849–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Someone needs to mention what may be lost. Of course, one of the problems is that what I would judge to be a negative consequence, someone else might see as a positive consequence. For example, telephones in automobiles seem to me a very bad idea. So does spending a lot of hours "communicating" on the Internet when one could use that time reading Cervantes' Don Quixote.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Neil Postman Ponders High Tech" at Online Newshour: Online Forum (17 January 1996)
“Oh—and “but it’s a good story” is the biggest load of crap ever foisted on the reading audience. Any story which deliberately violates core concepts and themes of original materials is not, by definition “a good story.” Time some people pulled their heads out of various writers’ asses and realized that. (2006)”
John Byrne (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The treatment of the period of Reconstruction reflects small credit upon American historians as scientists. We have too often a deliberate attempt so to change the facts of history that the story will make pleasant reading for Americans.”
W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Drinking wine and wearing trousers were nothing compared to reading the history of ideas.”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali (born 1969) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Yoga of action, leading to union with the soul is fiery aspiration, spiritual reading and devotion to Ishvara.”
Patañjali (active around 201 BC) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People may not like to meet bandits, especially on a dark night, but a taste for reading about them seems to be universal.”
Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Like you, I believe strongly that where there is a revolutionary element expressed in action, one must act resolutely. My reading of Indian history has led me to believe that a Government founded so completely as ours is upon prestige can stand almost anything except the suspicion of weakness.”
F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead (1872–1930) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Reading (13 November 1924), quoted in H. Montgomery Hyde, Lord Reading (Heinemann, 1967), p. 382
“I doubt whether the Revolution has, in essentials, changed Russia at all. Reading Gogol, or Dostoevsky for that matter, one realizes how completely the Soviet regime has fallen back on to, and perhaps invigorated, the old Russia. Certainly there is much more of Gogol and Dostoievsky in the regime than there is of Marx.”
Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Like It Was: The Diaries of Malcolm Muggeridge (1981), p. 252
“There is a maxim, 'Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.' It is a maxim for sluggards. A better reading of it is, 'Never do today what you can as well do tomorrow,' because something may occur to make you regret your premature action.”
Aaron Burr (1756–1836) said by 1836 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reported in Marshall Brown, Wit and Humor of Bench and Bar (1899), p. 67. Alternately reported as "Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow. Delay may give clearer light as to what is best to be done", reported…
“For centuries the so called goddess of education was against the dalit learning, reading and writing in any language. She was the goddess of education of only the high castes — mainly of the brahmins and baniayas.”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dalits and English" in Tehelka (15 February 2011).