Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,161,745 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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Books and reading
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“(Carmine Crocco) The so-called "General" Crocco, who played an important part as a brigand and Bourbonist leader in the partisan war of 1860-61, was an escaped convict, with thirty offences, ranging from petty larceny to murder, registered against him in the books of the Neapolitan tribunals. He pillaged both Bourbonists and Liberals with strict impartiality.”
Eliakim Littell (1797–1870) first seen 1866 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Living Age, Volume 90, Littell, Son and Co., 1866, p. 358-359
“At a very early stage in history we are encountering "survivorship bias" - the fact that only the best results tend to show up in the history books.”
William J. Bernstein (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In my protracted sojourn on this planet, Mr. Candle, I have come to value three commodities above all others: good books, decent claret, and worthy opponents.”
James K. Morrow (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(\left|x\right\rang \left|y\right\rang- \left|y\right\rang \left|x\right\rang) ... was my first lesson in quantum mechanics, and in a very real sense my last, since the rest is mere technique, which can be learnt from books.”
John Clive Ward (1924–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: J. C. Ward, Memoirs of a Theoretical Physicist (Optics Journal, Rochester, 2004).
“One can travel for weeks with baseball men and see no books at all.”
Roger Kahn (1927–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Holy books are an insult to a God with good intentions.”
Dejan Stojanovic (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People might say these (my) books are frivolous, but I don't see them that way. I think they're very impressively designed – just in an unconventional format.”
Alan Axelrod (born 1952) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Alan Axelrod, Business Book Juggernaut – An interview with Mike Hofman, Jun 1, 2004.
“The sinners … did not even have the consolation of feeling they were in God’s good books. The educated people told them that they were displeasing to God and “they ought to know.”
Albert Nolan (1934–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After spending an adult life of unfulfilled dreams and promises, a man has to prove something to himself. Maybe I’m trying to sum it all up to convince myself that everything I’ve been doing makes sense. I guess, I just want to get it all off my chest before I close up the books.”
John B. Anderson (1922–2017) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in “Anderson Climbs Uphill Toting Heavyweight Issues” by Dan Balz, in The Washington Post (17 November 1979)
“Because let’s be honest about this — is there any law New Atheists can point to that has been their political output? That has changed due to their activism? What has it done? It sells books, it makes for great polemics, it keeps journalists busy, but there has been no political accomplishment.”
Jacques Berlinerblau (born 1966) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Professor Jacques Berlinerblau tells atheists: Stop whining!" Washington Post, 17th September 2012
“Even though homosexuality is considered a sin in all the Semitic holy books, it does not require any punishment in this world. It is a sin that will accompany its committee in the life after death.”
Salman al-Ouda (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm a writer but I'm also a person in the world. I don't feel a terrible obligation to write a lot of books. (1988)”
Grace Paley (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The books that influenced me most were Hugh Miller's, particularly his "Schools and Schoolmasters." Also the "Waverley Novels," in conjunction with Scottish History, opened out the great world of national life for and led me on to politics. But Hugh Miller had more influence upon me than any other.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Contribution to 'Character Sketches. I—The Labour Party And The Books That Helped To Make It', The Review of Reviews, Vol. XXXIII (June 1906), p. 577
“The audience is unpredictable, and the people who produce and distribute the artistic work have no real contact with it. They market the work in large quantities as with books and records, or through a mechanical system, as with radio and television, so that they could not, if they tried, know audience members personally.”
Howard S. Becker (1928–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The council uh, forced me to leave the, the country. That was officially, but, in fact, you know, it's 'n...uh...there are many books writing of that, that, that uh incident and the American official in Saigon are very pleased at that time to see me uh out of the country.”
Nguyen Khanh (1927–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I wanted to be a poet as a child and I have a wall in my study dedicated to poetry books, all in alphabetical order, that reminds me daily of my failure.”
Colm Tóibín (born 1955) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: World of Colm Tóibín, writer, The Daily Telegraph (27 February 2012)
“The room is like a cave, and has books I love in it. The main door was closed up and a smaller opening was made under the stairs. (I went away while all this was happening.) The furniture is locked in, and part of me is locked in too, or I hope it is, although I often made a bid to escape. I have left instructions that I would like to be buried here when I die or a bit before, the cave bricked up.”
Colm Tóibín (born 1955) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Writers' rooms: Colm Tóibín, The Guardian (13 July 2007)
“The research needed for social practice can best be characterized as research for social management or social engineering. It is a type of action research, a comparative research of the conditions and effects of various forms of social action, and research leading to social action. Research that produces nothing but books will not suffice.”
Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) said by 1947 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am free from ties and can live a life of retirement. When I rise from sleep, I play with books and harp.”
Tao Yuanming (365–427) said by 427 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His great holy books, which he does not know. They are so holy that he does not dare to open them.”
Elias Canetti (1905–1994) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: J. Agee, trans. (1989), p. 132
“The classification of subject matter may be carried out for all sort of special purposes - to arrange books on shelves, to group inventions in patents, to classify the raw materials, intermediates and products of importance to a particular manufacturer, and so on. All such arrangements have their particular uses and their particular problems.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In scientific information, then, we find that subjects - the themes and topics on which books and articles are written - cluster into fields, each of which can be analysed into its characteristic set of facets of terms.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our profession is concerned with three "aspects of the world". First, how people behave when they feel a need for information; second, characteristics of documentary information that constrain how we can manipulate it; and third, characteristics of the physical media that carry the information, whether they be static books or dynamic electronic networks.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Douglas Foskett was an outstanding librarian, well known in Britain and overseas. He was one of the thinkers of the library profession, and although devoted to books as such he was also among the first to recognise the potential of automated systems.”
Douglas John Foskett (1918–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Douglas Foskett Notes on foskett-genealogy.co.uk, 2013
“The answer can't be found in books — or be solved by bringing it to other people. Not unless you want to remain a child all your life. You've got to find the answer inside you — feel the right thing to do.”
Daniel Keyes (1927–2014) said by 2014 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tuition costs are outrageous. Fortunately, they gave me a scholarship…so I only had to cover living expenses, books, etc., by working.”
“Every author has several motivations for writing, and authors of technical books always have, as one motivation, the personal need to understand; that is, they write because they want to learn, or to understand a phenomenon, or to think through a set of ideas.”
A. Wayne Wymore (1927–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why is it that countries which we call strong" are so powerful in creating wars but are so weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy but giving books is so hard? Why is it, why is it that making tanks is so easy, but building schools is so hard?”
Malala Yousafzai (born 1997) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Seventy percent of all IT projects fail—and scores of books have attempted to help firms measure and manage IT systems and processes better in order to turn this figure around.”
Jeanne W. Ross (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After I finished my books, I felt I had to do another one and I thought that if I were to choose a subject, it had to be mosques.”
Wahbi Al-Hariri (1914–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: Lisa Kaaki (2002-01-25). Wahbi Al-Hariri - the last of the classicists. Arab News. Saudi Research & Publishing Company.
“Complete accountability is established and enforced throughout; and if there there is any error committed, it will be discovered on a comparison with the books and can be traced to its source.”
Alfred D. Chandler Jr. (1918–2007) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 74; Cited in: Michael H. Best (1990) The New Competition: Institutions of Industrial Restructuring. p. 36.
“The minutest details of cost of materials and labor in every department appeared from day to day and week to week in the accounts; and soon every man about the place was made to realize it. The men felt and often remarked that the eye of the company were on them through the books.”
Alfred D. Chandler Jr. (1918–2007) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bridge (1903, p. 85), cited on p. 268; Cited in: Best (1990, p. 63).
“Judgments upon books are formed with even more haste and levity than judgments upon men. Writings are talked of without being known; and people take up an opinion for or against, in consequence of decisions which it would cost them some trouble to determine the source. These are evils which must be borne with patience, and the more so because they are common.”
Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) said by 1874 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't sit at the same table with people like Sisi. They invited us to a dinner at the same table at the UN General Assembly. I did not attend that dinner. Next day, they did the same, I did not attend again. Why? Because that picture would be a black stain for me in the history books. It is impossible for me to sit at the same table with a coup leader. The world knows our attitude on the issue.”
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (born 1954) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as reported by Anadolu Agency on 3 June 2015
“The room took shape in all its squalor: clothes scattered everywhere; plates of half-finished meals; the long table used as a desk, every inch of its surface covered by moldering documents, books, and sheaves of paper bestrewn with his father's tiny script.”
Michael Nava (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Edward raises the pointer and places its tip against Alec’s forehead. “What’s the use of having a library in there if you won’t open the books, boy? What’s the good of augmented intelligence if you won’t use it?”
Kage Baker (1952–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The pages of most books were of mottled parchment, that is, dried sheepskin, which was universally available—and nowhere more abundant than in Ireland, whose bright green fields still host each April an explosion of new white lambs. Vellum, or calfskin, which was more uniformly white when dried, was used more sparingly for the most honored texts.”
Thomas Cahill (1940–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Advice to whoever asks me how to make a home is to not have anything, just a few shelves for books, some pillows to sit on. And then, to take a stand against the ephemeral, against passing trends [...] and to return to lasting values.”
Gae Aulenti (1927–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the realm of ESP, precognition, dreams, and related matters, there are few guideposts and little common sense applied. Most of the books written in the so-called "occult" or "spiritual" fields were worthless nonsense in my opinion -- as were treatises that debunked all subjective experiences as "unscientific.”
Susan M. Watkins (born 1945) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In books may be found the recipes for manufacture of a steam-engine alongside the recipes for daily living—the prescriptions for the mind and the heart.”
Georges Duhamel (1884–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What a teacher imparts by word of mouth is nothing in comparison with what he teaches us to get for ourselves from books.”
Georges Duhamel (1884–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Little House books are stories of long ago. The way we live and your schools are much different now, so many changes have made living and learning easier. But the real things haven't changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures and to be cheerful and have courage when things go wrong.”
Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to children (February 1947)
“I should have done my novel before this, but I was a journalist and a junkie for 20 years and unlike the junkie cliché, I had good jobs all over the world. I was a books editor, I did financial journalism for Asia Week for five years, I was Bombay correspondent for the South China Morning Post for 18 months, I worked for every newspaper in India doing arts journalism. I was a hardworking junkie.”
Jeet Thayil (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are many possible realities, infinitely many. Yet most of them are not . . . alive. Most of them are like books that no one ever actually wrote. A group-mind, like humanity's, lights up one given world. What makes this world different from some ghostly alternative universe is that we actually live here.”
Rudy Rucker (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A man was wise if heavy and tardy, like all phlegmatic temperaments; learned if he wrote books with one eye on the public and the other on his colleague.”
Oscar Levy (1867–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The books of hawking assign to the different ranks of persons the sort of hawks proper to be used by them: and they are placed in the following order--”
Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) said by 1802 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A treatise on mental dietetics would be imperfect without some special notice of that most irrational and melancholy of all human torments, hypochondriasis. Reason, morality, wit, and even religion, have endeavoured by every possible means to exorcise this demon. By pamphlets and by books—in tragedy and in comedy — from the pulpit and on the stage, it has been denounced and ridiculed.”
Ernst, Baron von Feuchtersleben (1806–1849) said by 1849 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am uncomfortable with the thought that serious thinkers about politics may retire into the ivory tower and write difficult—if often very interesting—essays and books for their colleagues alone, leaving debates over the prospects of modern political life to the punditry of contributors to the op-ed pages, or the shouting matches that pass for political debate on some television channels.”
“Progress in economics is said to take place through a cumulative process in which scholars build on the work of their predecessors. In an age when graduate syllabi contain few references to books and articles written as many as ten years ago, this is too infrequently the case.”
Barry Eichengreen (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The genuine reader is the one who reads for pleasure the books that others only study.”
Nicolás Gómez Dávila (1913–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source