Thomas Carlyle Quotes

It is not the reading of many books which is necessary to make a man wise or good; but well reading of a few.

The second suggestion is to think as well as to read. I know people who read and read, and for all the good it does them they might just as well cut bread-and-butter. They take to reading as better men take to drink. They fly through the shires of literature on a motor-car, their sole object being motion. They will tell you how many books they have read in a year. Unless you give at least 45 minutes to careful, fatiguing reflection (it is an awful bore at first) upon what you are reading, your 90 minutes of a night are chiefly wasted.

What we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention; so there is but one half to be employed on what we read.

Skimming is fine for our emails, but it's not fine for some of the important forms of reading.

A good book deserves an active reading. The activity of reading does not stop with the work of understanding what a book says. It must be completed by the work of criticism, the work of judging. The undemanding reader fails to satisfy this requirement, probably even more than he fails to analyze and interpret. He not only makes no effort to understand; he also dismisses a book simply by putting it aside and forgetting it. Worse than faintly praising it, he damns it by giving it no critical consideration whatever.

The first class of readers may be compared to an hour-glass, their reading being as the sand; it runs in and runs out, and leaves not a vestige behind. A second class resembles a sponge, which imbibes everything, and returns it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtier. A third class is like a jelly-bag, which allows all that is pure to pass away, and retains only the refuse and dregs. The fourth class may be compared to the slave of Golconda, who, casting aside all that is worthless, preserves only the pure gems.

He objected, though, to indiscriminate reading. 'One must have some question,' he wrote, 'addressed to the book one is going to read.

No book can be so good, as to be profitable when negligently read.

Reading is important - read between the lines. Don't swallow everything.

Be sure then to read no mean books. Shun the spawn of the press on the gossip of the hour. Do not read what you shall learn, without asking, in the street and the train.

In a sense, there's a great truth to that, but, also I was a great reader.

I still believe that sitting down and reading a book is the best way to really learn something.

I care about reading, a lot. It's a big part of my life.

I can't promise that every child with learning differences will become a novelist, but I do think all children can become lifelong readers.

I am very much interested in getting parents to read to children, and trying to get people mentoring children. If I can do both I'll be happy.

The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity.

Like measles, the reading bug is best caught when you are young.

I have said it often and I will say it again: I believe you learn to read when you are young, then read to learn for the rest of your life.

I'm not well read.

Read, read, read, read and then read some more.

I read a lot as a kid and in high school.

I think reading is important in any form. I think a person who's trying to learn to like reading should start off reading about a topic they are interested in, or a person they are interested in.

I can't actually wrap my mind around it easily - I can't really visualize what 2 million books looks like... So I try to keep it real for myself by focusing on individual anecdotes of how my books have helped kids learn to love reading.

I'm always reading something.

I have always advised men to read.