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Quotes about Books

    “There are too many mediocre books which exist just to entertain your mind. Therefore, read only those books which are accepted without doubt as good.”

    Lucius Annaeus Seneca, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 13)

      “Compare the difference between the life of a man who does no reading and that of a man who does. The man who has not the habit of reading is imprisoned in his immediate world, in respect to time and space. His life falls into a set routine; he is limited to contact and conversation with a few friends and acquaintances, and he sees only what happens in his immediate neighborhood. From this prison there is no escape.

      But the moment he takes up a book, he immediately enters a different world, and if it is a good book, he is immediately put in touch with one of the best talkers of the world. This talker leads him on and carries him into a different country or a different age, or unburdens to him some of his personal regrets, or discusses with him some special line or aspect of life that the reader knows nothing about. An ancient author puts him in communion with a dead spirit of long ago, and as he reads along, he begins to imagine what that ancient author looked like and what type of person he was…

      Now to be able to live two hours out of twelve in a different world and take one’s thoughts off the claims of the immediate present is, of course, a privilege to be envied by people shut up in their bodily prison.”

      Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living

      Carl Sagan Quote on Books and How They Are Proof That We Are Capable of Working Magic

        “What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”

        Carl Sagan, Cosmos

        Beyond the Quote (303/365)

        Breaking the shackles of time? Getting to curiously peer inside the mind of another human being? Communicating with people who have long since passed away? Well, when you put it like that, how could you NOT believe in magic? These little “flat objects” containing “funny dark squiggles” are nothing short of astonishing and are some of the most uniquely magical objects that you might ever find grasped within the palms of your two hands. Carl Sagan makes a convincing case.

        Read More »Carl Sagan Quote on Books and How They Are Proof That We Are Capable of Working Magic

          “You could try to pound your head against the wall and think of original ideas or you can cheat by reading them in books.”

          Patrick Collison

            “[On reading] I cannot understand how some people can live without communicating with the wisest people who ever lived on earth.”

            Leo Tolstoy, via Stillness is the Key (Page 65)

            Quote About How You Don’t Find What You Don’t Seek

              “Take heed: you do not find what you do not seek.”

              English Proverb

              Beyond the Quote (56/365)

              Obviously, right?  Well… Maybe not so obvious.  The concept is easily understood, of course.  If you’re playing hide and seek with your kids, for example, and you send them off to hide, but you choose not to seek them out (that was mean of you), then they won’t be found.  Until of course, they come out seeking you so that they can yell at you for not playing the game with them properly (and for being mean)!  If you don’t seek, you won’t find.  If you don’t go out looking for cars, you won’t find a car.  If you don’t seek advice or help, you won’t find advice or help.  If you don’t look for the good in people, you won’t find the good in people.  Where this concept becomes, “not so obvious” is when you want to find but don’t know how to seek (or aren’t even aware that you’re not seeking).

              Read More »Quote About How You Don’t Find What You Don’t Seek

                “To write a great book, you must first become the book.” ~ Naval Ravikant, via Atomic Habits