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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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• “Books should be closed each year, especially in partnership because frequent accounting makes for long friendship.”

  Luca Pacioli (1440–1517) first seen 1494 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: (Venice 1494)

• “Shall we not rejoice then and revel in the glorious liberty of extract, and quote to the thousandth line? Shall we not have pages like the Pyramids? Who ever skipped a quotation, though it made against the interest of the story? Besides, how many books might be numbered that are valuable only in a solitary quotation!—as the oyster is esteemed for the pearl it may sometimes contain.”

  Samuel Laman Blanchard (1804–1845) said by 1845 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “He [Kippis] might be a very clever man by nature for aught I know, but he laid so many books upon his head that his brains could not move.”

  Robert Hall (1764–1831) said by 1831 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: On Kippis; Gregory’s Life of Hall, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• “Books and all forms of writing have always been objects of terror to those who seek to suppress truth.”

  Wole Soyinka (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “A life spent largely among books, and in the exercise of a literary profession, has very obvious drawbacks, as a subject matter, when one comes to write about it.”

  Mary Augusta Ward (1851–1920) said by 1920 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “An Author, whether good or bad, or between both, is an Animal whom every body is privileged to attack; For though All are not able to write Books, all conceive themselves able to judge them.”

  Matthew Lewis (writer) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There is something very intimate and personal about one's books. They reveal so much of one's private soul.”

  Dion Fortune (1890–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “One must always be careful of books," said Tessa, "and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.”

  Cassandra Clare (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Angus Wilson says in Wild Garden that most of his books begin with a visual image; one of them began when he saw these two people arguing and he had to find out what they were arguing about, who they were. That fits in beautifully with the kind of visual image that started The Left Hand of Darkness.”

  Angus Wilson (1913–1991) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: 1982 interview in Conversations with Ursula Le Guin

• “Self-help books for those who believe You can have it all often advise, Follow your bliss and money will follow. With the collapse of the stock markets the reality of trade-offs is more like, When you follow your bliss, it’s money you’ll miss.”

  Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Education ent only books and music – it's asking questions, all the time. There are millions of us, all over the country, and no one, not one of us, is asking questions, we're all taking the easiest way out.”

  Arnold Wesker (1932–2016) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Roots, Act 3 (1959)

• “This is destined to be a very wealthy portion of the United States, and, if to this we can add the most temperate, nothing will prevent our rising, and becoming a valuable acquisition to the union. Much power now lies in your hands, and, I sincerely hope, we may commence our new career with a law in our statute books, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of ardent spirits in Oregon territory.”

  George Abernethy (1807–1877) first seen 1849 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: George Abernethy (1849) "Governor George Abernethy Legislative Message, 1849", Oregon State Archives, Oregon Secretary of State.

• “Browsing in books as lovers do, they were only being considerate, because their tenderness to each other made them tender towards others as well. (p. 192)”

  Stig Dagerman (1923–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I...am obliged of course to believe the sanctity of the venerable books [of Genesis].”

  William Jones (philologist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I propose to lay before you a concise history of Indian chronology extracted from Sanskrit books, attached to no system, and as much disposed to reject Mosaick history, if it be proved erroneous, as to believe it, if it be confirmed by sound reason from indubitable evidence.”

  William Jones (philologist) first seen 1790 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: On the Chronology of the Hindoos (1790), quoted in E. F. Bryant, The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture (Oxford UP, 2001) ch. 1

• “It seemed to me at an early age that all human communication – whether it’s TV, movies, or books – begins with somebody wanting to tell a story. That need to tell, to plug into a universal socket, is probably one of our grandest desires. And the need to hear stories, to live lives other than our own for even the briefest moment, is the key to the magic that was born in our bones.”

  Robert McCammon (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Rita: Have they sacked y'? Frank: Not quite. Rita: Well, why y' – packing your books away. Frank: Australia. [After a pause] Some weeks ago – made rather a night of it. Rita: Did y' bugger the bursar? Frank: Metaphorically.”

  Willy Russell (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “An artist’s life is all very fine and moving. But only in retrospect. In books.”

  Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “What should be most significant to us are not physical artifacts, but the meaning they embody. ...whenever we create paintings, songs, poems, books, computer programs—or ideas in the minds of children—we do something of this sort.”

  Frank Wilczek (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Can you imagine me coming to this country to blow up a post office? I told them, "My bombs are my books.”

  Carlos Fuentes (1928–2012) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: About being denied a visa to the United States in the early 1960s after he praised the Cuban Revolution; as quoted by Anne-Marie O'Connor, "Novelist Carlos Fuentes confronts mortality and his country's future", Los Ange…

• “The meaning of culture" is nothing less than the conduct of life itself, fortified, thickened, made more crafty and subtle, by contact with books and with art.”

  John Cowper Powys (1872–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Quote in a letter of 7 March 1917 to H. P. Bremmer; as cited in Mondrian, -The Art of Destruction, Carel Blotkamp, Reaktion Books LTD. London 2001, p. 91”

  Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) said by 1944 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Anyone who has had actual contact with the making of the inventions that built the radio art knows that these inventions have been the product of experiment and work based on physical reasoning, rather than on the mathematicians' calculations and formulae. Precisely the opposite impression is obtained from many of our present day text books and publications.”

  Edwin Howard Armstrong (1890–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: As quoted in Electronics (2005) by P. Arun, p. 310

• “Anjali: Oh, wow. I am tripping out that I actually get to work here! Being constantly surrounded by books! Bringing ideas, poems, and manifestoes to the world! How can you stand it?! Jezanna: That reminds me, Lois. The lube shipment just came in.”

  Alison Bechdel (born 1960) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: #252, "The Trouble with Sidney" (1996), collected in Hot, Throbbing DTWOF (1997).

• “Books may preach when the author cannot, when the author may not, when the author dares not, yes, and which is more, when the author is not.”

  Thomas Brooks (Puritan) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I never write about simple, gentle things, and I never will. It's not being sensational. I hate sensational books. Unless we look at dark and covered painful wounds, we can never heal them. (1995)”

  Edna O'Brien (1930–2024) said by 2024 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “A lot of young writers send me books and they want to be published, 'to be famous, to be known'. That isn't the job. That comes later, if it comes at all. A writer has to love that vocation - and it is an extremely unbefriended and difficult vocation.”

  Edna O'Brien (1930–2024) said by 2024 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Most mathematics books are filled with finished theorems and polished proofs, and to a surprising extent they ignore the methods used to create mathematics. It is as if you merely walked through a picture gallery and never told how to mix paints, how to compose pictures, or all the other "tricks of the trade.”

  Richard Hamming (1915–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The Assuredness Movement?” Shallan asked, holding up one of her books. “I guess I could get behind that.” “Oh?” “Yes. Much easier to stab it in the back from that position.”

  Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Oh, Adolin, Shallan thought. He’d arrived at a theory he liked, and now wouldn’t let it go. It was a common mistake warned of in her scientific books.”

  Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The scientific books written in Arabic during the Middle Ages were, for a few centuries, the main vehicle of the living science.”

  George Sarton (1884–1956) said by 1956 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: George Sarton, ‘Science' in Mid-East: World-Center, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, ed. Ruth Nanda Anshen, Cooper Square Publishers, New York, 1975, p. 269.

• “There is..., a danger, since knowledge... is... patchy, and first-class minds are rarely content with the known, but... push off into the unknown, and so become specialists, that the mystery of life becomes automatically thrust out from those regions each has... explored... into those known only at second-hand and by hearsay or from books.”

  Frederick Soddy (1877–1956) said by 1956 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Then they died. And other men came after them. Wars flamed up and burned out; the howling peoples dwelt in smashed cities and kindled their fires with books.”

  Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I seek occasional relief in old books. They help me tell the transient from the enduring.”

  Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “When reproached for spending too much time with books and clerks, Charles answered, “As long as knowledge is honored in this country, so long will it prosper.”

  Barbara Tuchman (1912–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The Kindle is just the razor. The books are the blades — ka-ching!”

  David Pogue (born 1963) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Kindle: Good Before, Better Now," The New York Times, February 24, 2009.

• “The climate stubbornly refuses to co-operate with computer models and the writers of alarmist popular articles and books.”

  Ian Plimer (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures.”

  Samuel Gompers (1850–1924) first seen 1915 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Shoe workers' journal, Volume 16‎ (1915) p. 4

• “What does labor want? We want more school houses and less jails. More books and less guns. More learning and less vice. More leisure and less greed. More justice and less revenge. We want more … opportunities to cultivate our better natures.”

  Samuel Gompers (1850–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Quoted in Mantsios, Gregory. A New Labor Movement for the New Century. Florence, Ky.: Taylor & Francis, 1998, p. 51.

• “All noblest things are religious,— not temples and martyrdoms only, but the best books, pictures, poetry, statues, and music.”

  William Mountford (1816–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “By computing the position of various stars on 11 April 1960, an astrologer would be able to deduce that I'm selfish, arrogant and thoughtless. But this seems like an unnecessarily complicated palaver. I mean why bother with reference books and slide rules and telescopes when you can simply ask what sort of car I drive. See the car. Know the man.”

  Jeremy Clarkson (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “He genuinely looked terrified. The poor man, he's actually seen the books. In England we have this one-eyed Scottish idiot.”

  Jeremy Clarkson (born 1960) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Clarkson apologises for PM remark" BBC News (9 February 2008).

• “There is no revolution like the Communist revolution. You simply burn all the books, kill all of the thinking people and use the poor proletariat to create a very simple benchmark to gauge social change.”

  Ai Weiwei (born 1957) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “As Jules Renard said, no matter how much care an author takes to write as few books as possible, there will be people who haven’t heard of some of them.”

  Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The speculators deadly enemies are: Ignorance, greed, fear and hope. All the statute books in the world and all the rules of all the Exchanges on earth cannot eliminate these from the human animal.”

  Edwin Lefèvre (1871–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We are at last beginning to relegate to the history books the idea of the token woman.”

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933–2020) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: About her legacy. As quoted in: Jay Croft (September 20, 2020): 10 quotes that help define the ‘Notorious RBG’ legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In: CNN. Archived from the original on September 9, 2022.

• “I'm the biggest nerd - I love comic books and stuff like that!”

  Megan Fox (born 1986) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Megan Fox: 'Biggest Nerd', likes comic books, men over girlfriends. news.com.au. (23 September 2008)

• “Value all books in proportion as they are agreeable to Scripture. Those that are nearest to it are the best, and those that are farthest from it, and most contrary to it, are the worst.”

  J. C. Ryle (1816–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “As a four-year-old, my mother told me I was climbing the fence, jumping off and calling myself an 'eppyplane' … I bought books on aeroplanes, I followed everything in the newspapers about aeroplanes. Amy Johnson flew to Australia in 1930 - why couldn't I do something like that?”

  Nancy Bird Walton (1915–2009) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Nancy Bird Walton in an interview with George Negus on George Negus Tonight, 8 March 2004 http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/aviation/aviatrices/

• “The books of men have their day and grow obsolete. God's word is like Himself, "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.”

  Robert Payne Smith (1818–1895) first seen 1895 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 35.

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