Isaac Barrow Quotes

I cannot sit and think; books think for me.

It sounds so geeky, but I really do like studying and reading, and if I'm not working on 'Harry Potter,' then my greatest relaxation is to sit with a book.

You see, one of the best things about reading is that you'll always have something to think about when you're not reading.

[Books] may sleep for a while and be neglected; but whenever the desire of information springs up in the human breast, there they are with mild wisdom ready to instruct and please us.

There are noble books but one wants the breath of life sometimes.

I suppose what one wants really is ideal company and books are ideal company.

A book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.

I think books were my salvation, they saved me from being miserable.

The boy spends most of his time reading. And writing, of course. He copies out sections of books, writes out words and symbols he does not understand at first but that become intimately familiar beneath his ink-stained fingers, formed again and again in increasingly steady lines.

Some people act as if it were demeaning to their manhood to wish to be well-read but you can no more be a healthy person mentally without reading substantial books than you can be a vigorous person physically without eating solid food. Books should be chosen, not for their freedom from evil, but for their possession of good. Dr. Johnson said: "Whilst you stand deliberating which book your son shall read first, another boy has read both."

As always, one of her books was next to her.

How important my books are or anybody's books are, I don't know. I don't think they are terribly important I think that they make people contented during the period they are reading them and this is worth something is to take care of somebody for a couple of hours.

Let us assume that entertainment is the sole end of reading; even so I think you would hold that no mental employment is so broadening to the sympathies or so enlightening to the understanding. Other pursuits belong not to all times, all ages, all conditions; but this gives stimulus to our youth and diversion to our old age; this adds a charm to success, and offers a haven of consolation to failure. Through the night-watches, on all our journeyings, and in our hours of ease, it is our unfailing companion.

I’ve always found that the better the book I’m reading, the smarter I feel, or, at least, the more able I am to imagine that I might, someday, become smarter.

Sit in a room and read--and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.

The true felicity of a lover of books is the luxurious turning of page by page, the surrender, not meanly abject, but deliberate and cautious, with your wits about you, as you deliver yourself into the keeping of the book. This I call reading.

I read,' I say. 'I study and read. I bet I've read everything you've read. Don't think I haven't. I consume libraries. I wear out spines and ROM drives. I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.

If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries.

I'll tell you what I think. I think you need to stay indoors reading more books!

Good books are to the young mind what the warming sun and the refreshing rain of spring are to the seeds which have lain dormant in the frosts of winter. They are more, for they may save from that which is worse than death, as well as bless with that which is better than life.

Read a lot. Expect something big, something exalting or deepening from a book. No book is worth reading that isn't worth re-reading.

One can only snort so many ants and have so much sex before one starts to long for the comfort and companionship of a good book.

Reading gives one something to think about other than one's self.

It is both relaxing and invigorating to occasionally set aside the worries of life, seek the company of a friendly book...from the reading of 'good books' there comes a richness of life that can be obtained in no other way.

Books never pall on me. They discourse with us, they take counsel with us, and are united to us by a certain living chatty familiarity. And not only does each book inspire the sense that it belongs to its readers, but it also suggests the name of others, and one begets the desire of the other.