Samuel Taylor Coleridge Quotes

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

You can either read something many times in order to be assured that you got it all, or else you can define your purpose and use techniques which will assure that you have met it and gotten what you need.

I divide all readers into two classes: those who read to remember and those who read to forget.

I will say this: I know no wise person who doesn't read a lot. I suspect that you can read on the computer now and get a lot of benefit out of it, but I doubt that it'll work as well as reading print worked for me.

When reading a book, be very certain that you never go past a word you do not fully understand. The only reason a person gives up a study or becomes confused or unable to learn is because he or she has gone past a word that was not understood.

If time is precious, no book that will not improve by repeated readings deserves to be read at all.

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.

For those who are going to learn from books, learning the art of reading would seem to be indispensable.

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.

When we read too fast or too slowly, we understand nothing.

a good reader makes a good book

To buy books would be a good thing if we could also buy the time to read them; but the purchase of books is often mistaken for the assimilation and mastering of their contents.

Some read to think, these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.

Life is too short for reading inferior books.

The chief knowledge that's man on from reading books is the knowledge that very few of them are worth reading.

Reading without purpose is sauntering not exercise.

Some read books only with a view to find fault, while others read only to be taught; the former are like venomous spiders, extracting a poisonous quality, where the latter, like the bees, sip out a sweet and profitable juice.

F.R. Leavis's "eat up your broccoli" approach to fiction emphasises this junkfood/wholefood dichotomy. If reading a novel--for theeighteenth century reader, the most frivolous of diversions--did not, by the middle of the twentieth century, make you a better person in some way, then you might as well flush the offending volume down the toilet, which was by far the best place for the undigested excreta of dubious nourishment.

Memorizing, guessing, looking at pictures, predicting, substituting, and skipping, are not reading; they are very bad habits.

I'm never ashamed to read a book twice or as many times as I want. We never expect to drink a glass of water just once in our lives. A book can be that essential, too.

Talking over the things which you have read with your companions fixes them on the mind.

Besides, rereading, not reading, is what counts.

The good of a book lies in its being read.

Year followed struggling year for me, and all that time I read - I suppose few have ever read so. I began, as most young people do, by reading the books I enjoyed. But I found that narrowed my pleasure.

Will you lie to me and promise to read them? Books need to be read. The pages need to be turned.