Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,161,747 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatinaNederlands
Books and reading
LoveFriendshipHappinessHopeFearCourageDeathLifeTimeWarPeaceFreedomTruthWisdomKnowledgeScienceArtMusicNatureMoneyWorkPowerGodBeautyLaughterFamilySuccess and failureChangeDreamsBooks and reading
“I read sometime around 1938 of Jewish fines and some street actions against them. But I was too concerned with U-Boats and the naval problems to be concerned about Jews.”
Karl Dönitz (1891–1980) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To Leon Goldensohn, May 2, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.
“I have never believed in war. It is a crime against humanity whether you win or lose. I just read an article in this magazine I have in my hands that one day the moon will fall on the earth, but it is my feeling that until then, we should try to make the world a better place to live in.”
Hjalmar Schacht (1877–1970) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To Leon Goldensohn (9 June 1946). Quoted in "The Nuremberg Interviews" - by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.
“Learn to read slow, all other graces Will follow in their proper places.”
William Walker (1623–1684) said by 1684 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Art of Reading, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Take time enough; all other graces/ Will soon fill up their proper places", John Byrom, Advice to preach slow.
“[p]eople who go to Wikipedia to get ideas for whom to hire, or honor, or read, and look at that list of 'American Novelists' for inspiration ... might simply use that list without thinking twice about it.”
Amanda Filipacchi (born 1967) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Wikipedia's Sexism Toward Female Novelists (April 24, 2013)
“[A]ll food images, if they are successful, have the power to arouse appetite. They should be luscious and sexy. I have no embarrassment about the culinary come-on. But that's the limit of my erotic intent. I am always surprised when people read double entendres into my innocuous babble.”
Nigella Lawson (born 1960) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "You Ask The Questions", The Independent (12 September 2002), p. 7
“The culture of a people is an ensemble of texts, themselves ensembles, which the anthropologist strains to read over the shoulders of those to whom they properly belong.”
Clifford Geertz (1926–2006) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Clifford Geertz, "Deep play: Notes on the Balinese cockfight", in Geertz (ed., 1971), Myth, symbol and culture, New York: Norton, page 29
“I myself have not met a self-confessed liberal since the late fifties (and even then it was a tacky thing to admit, like coming from the middle class or the Middle West, those two gloomy seedbeds of talent), yet hardly a day passes that I don't read another attack on the "typical liberal" — as it might be announcing a pest of dinosaurs or a plague of unicorns.”
Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Spock Mugged" (1973), p. 91
“The greatest danger to our future is apathy. We cannot expect those living in poverty and ignorance to worry about saving the world. For those of us able to read this magazine, it is different. We can do something to preserve our planet.”
Jane Goodall (1934–2025) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Power of One", TIME Magazine (26 August 2002)
“Watch your step. Keep your wits about you; you will need them. This city I am bringing you to is vast and intricate, and you have not been here before. You may imagine, from other stories you've read, that you know it well, but those stories flattered you, welcoming you as a friend, treating you as if you belonged. The truth is that you are an alien from another time and place altogether.”
Michel Faber (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I tried to answer but she interrupted and went off in a Barrymore manner, speaking deeply and tragically; murmuring of the pity of it all, the stupidity of it all, the absurdity of a hopelessly bad writer like myself buried in a cheap hotel in Los Angeles, California, of all places, writing banal things the world would never read and never get a chance to forget.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I hate it when something I’ve had published "inspires" some nut to imitate what I’ve written, or some teacher gets fired for having her students read one of my stories or novels.”
Richard Matheson (1926–2013) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ed Gorman Calling: We Talk to Richard Matheson" (2004)
“When you read sutras don't seek to understand them. Stay in touch with precisely what they are eliciting in terms of experience in you.”
Ken McLeod (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yet the stones remain less real to those who cannot name them, or read the mute syllables graven in silica. To see a red stone is less than seeing it as jasper — metamorphic quartz, cousin to the flint the Kiowa carved as arrowheads. To name is to know and remember.”
Dana Gioia (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Forty years ago, when Dylan Thomas read, he spent half the program reciting other poets' work. Hardly a self-effacing man, he was nevertheless humble before his art. Today most readings are celebrations less of poetry than of the author's ego. No wonder the audience for such events usually consists entirely of poets, would-be poets, and friends of the author.”
Dana Gioia (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is the defining difference between passive and active citizens? Curiously, it isn't income, geography, or even education. It depends on whether or not they read for pleasure and participate in the arts. These cultural activities seem to awaken a heightened sense of individual awareness and social responsibility.”
Dana Gioia (born 1950) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Commencement speech, Stanford University (2007-06-17)
“And so one becomes, or I become, anyway, slightly obsessive, particularly about my health, because you wouldn't want to read the letters people write when you're off and they're disappointed - it's so awful, the guilt one feels for not being there.”
Elaine Paige (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ausonius must be read to be believed! As poet, no subject is too trivial for him; as courtier, no flattery too excessive.”
Ausonius (310–395) said by 395 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Gore Vidal, Julian (1964), p. 11.
“The author of Amelia, the most singular genius which their island ever produced, whose works it has long been the fashion to abuse in public and to read in secret.”
George Borrow (1803–1881) first seen 1843 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Bible in Spain (1843), ch. 1.
“If there is any man today who believes that the object of the eternal struggle for existence will evolve a higher type, an aristocracy of class, nation or race, that man has failed to read the history of mankind. In other words, he is a hopeless optimist.”
Norman Lindsay (1879–1969) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Creative Effort (London, 1924), p. 18
“[H]e was a very well-bred young fellow, polite in his manners, graceful in his attitudes, and able to converse on a great variety of subjects, having read all the best Australian poets.”
Norman Lindsay (1879–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He was quite capable of talking just as men talk in bad stories in popular magazines, and Miss Matfield had sometimes wondered whether it was because he had read a great many bad stories or because the stories were nearer the truth than one thought and were worked up, on the fringes of Empire, out of men like Major Ansdell.”
J. B. Priestley (1894–1984) said by 1984 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know that when I write, I'm writing for people who can handle high-school math, read at the Grade 12 level, and appreciate subtle humor as opposed to the toilet-bowl kind. I guess that makes the lower cutoff about 17-18 years old.”
Sean Punch (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This short Supplication, or Litany, read When the longer with us is not wont to be said, Tho' brief in Expression, as fully imports The Will to all Blessings, for "Men of all Sorts," — Same brotherly Love, by which Christians are taught To "pray without ceasing," or limiting Thought; That Religion may flourish upon its true Plan Of Glory to God and Salvation to Man.”
John Byrom (1692–1763) said by 1763 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I read the signs, I got all my stars aligned, My amulets, my charms, I set all my false alarms, So I'll be someone Who won't be forgotten.”
St. Vincent (musician) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I read an interview with her one time, where she was asked, something along the lines of "Why do you write from the perspective of a lot of characters?" And she said very simply and eloquently "because they're more interesting than I am.”
St. Vincent (musician) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Have you read all of them?”
Peter Greenaway (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No -- it's not necessary for a bookkeeper to read all the stock.”
Peter Greenaway (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Does Albert read?”
Peter Greenaway (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No. If you don't read, are you safe?”
Peter Greenaway (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Isn't that why people keep diaries -- to be read by someone else? Why would they keep them otherwise?”
Peter Greenaway (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Blind eyes cannot read.”
Peter Greenaway (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Itch to read, scratch to understand.”
Peter Greenaway (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I became ANC president in 2007, we needed to deal with the immediate challenge of HIV/Aids decimating our people. Today, millions of lives have been saved and transformed and we no longer see and read about “Aids babies” who die before their fifth birthday. South Africa today has the biggest treatment programme in the world with more than 3.9 million people on treatment by August 2017.”
Jacob Zuma (born 1942) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In defence of his term in office, on twitter, as quoted by Quinton Mtyala in Zuma hits back over Ramaphosa's 'nine lost years' comments, IOL News (29 January 2019)
“But my father he didn’t read moon, he didn’t speak moon, and he didn’t write moon. So there was no letter found next to his body in the garage when he chose to leave this place on purpose without saying where he was goin’ or why. There are still days you can catch me tape-recording eternal silence and playing it backwards for an empty room just so I can listen to his dying wish. Shh.”
Buddy Wakefield (born 1974) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Theses moments – as in a quote I read about life somewhere – are not a puzzle to be solved, but a moment to be lived. Just savor them when they happen. Call them coincidence. Call the synchronicity. Call them anything you want but, at the very least, savor them.”
Buddy Wakefield (born 1974) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Herbert Spencer is little read now. Philosophers do not regard him as a major thinker. Social Darwinism has long been in disrepute.”
Peter Singer (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“While we read history we make history ... Every great crisis of human history is a pass of Thermopylae, and there is always a Leonidas and his three hundred to die in it, if they can not conquer.”
George William Curtis (1824–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Moreover, although Israel’s Jewish character was never part of the negotiations, it has always been made explicit that transforming Israel into a non-Jewish (read non-racist) state is not pragmatic.”
Joseph Massad (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“However, the only way these arguments acquire any purchase is in the context of an international, read western, commitment to Jewish supremacy, wherein Jews are seen as white Europeans defending white European values and civilization against the primitive Arab hordes.”
Joseph Massad (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’m still proudest of The Death of Captain Marvel followed closely by various Dreadstar stories, Warlock, Kid Kosmos Kidnapped, The Thanos Quest and a series next-to-nobody ever read, called Wyrd, the Mystic Warrior...”
Jim Starlin (born 1949) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview at Newsarama (15 July 2006)
“I had auditory sensory problems and touch sensitivity problems, I had no problems with my vision. Other people absolutely cannot stand fluorescent lighting and they're sometimes helped by a thing called the Irlen colored glasses where you try on all kinds of different pale colored glasses until it's easier to read. It stops the problem of the print jiggling on the page.”
Temple Grandin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You've read about action at a distance, or quantum theory. I've always had the feeling that when I go to a meat plant I must be very careful, because God's watching. Quantum theory will get me.”
Temple Grandin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There can be no more thrilling idea of intimacy than connecting with someone through the agency of the written word. Here we meet, on the page, naked and unadorned: shorn of class, race, gender, sexual identity, age and nationality. The reader I seek is a tautology, for he/she is simply…the person who wants to read what I have written.”
Will Self (born 1961) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Guardian (9 May 2007).
“It normally happens that if you put two words together, or two syllables together, one of them will attract more weight, more emphasis, than the other. In other words, most so-called spondees can be read as either iambs or trochees.”
James Fenton (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Also, you can't prove that there isn't a ghost of Bagpuss hovering right behind your head as you read this. He's right there, man! No, he disappeared right after you turned your head. I swear he's there. Look, he's back again now! (Meet the Crazy Moon Man)”
Ben Croshaw (born 1983) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...you could pick any two writers of equal skill, have them read each other's work, and they would both instantly proclaim each other the champion. Unless one of them happens to be Stephen King, because he's a jerk. (God Ran Out of Faces)”
Ben Croshaw (born 1983) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My main inspiration is sardonic British TV critics like Charlie Brooker, whose excellent show Screenwipe is fully on Youtube, and I recommend everyone watch it. He used to write for a PC magazine I read fanatically as a child. My own style is a mixture of him, possibly Douglas Adams, and internet writers like Seanbaby, Old Man Murray, or Something Awful. I’m such a rip-off.”
Ben Croshaw (born 1983) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We may read many truths in the Bible, but we cannot know them savingly, till God by his Spirit shines upon our soul.”
Thomas Watson (Puritan) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep; Slowly, and then all at once.”
John Green (born 1977) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Go by reverently, and read with sober care How a great people, riding with defiant shouts The centaur of Revolution, Spurred and whipped to frenzy, Shook with terror, seeing the mist of the sea Over the precipice they were nearing, And fell from his back in precipitate awe To celebrate the Feast of the Supreme Being.”
Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source