Books have always a secret influence on the understanding; we
cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas: he that reads books read more

Books have always a secret influence on the understanding; we
cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas: he that reads books of
science, though without any desire fixed of improvement, will
grow more knowing; he that entertains himself with moral or
religious treatises, will imperceptibly advance in goodness; the
ideas which are often offered to the mind, will at last find a
lucky moment when it is disposed to receive them.

If we encountered a man or rare intellect, we should ask him what
books he read.
read more

If we encountered a man or rare intellect, we should ask him what
books he read.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson,

Night after night,
He sat and bleared his eyes with books.

Night after night,
He sat and bleared his eyes with books.

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he
reads as a task will do read more

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he
reads as a task will do him little good.

The sagacious reader who is capable of reading between these
lines what does not stand written in them, but read more

The sagacious reader who is capable of reading between these
lines what does not stand written in them, but is nevertheless
implied, will be able to form some conception.

I love to lose myself in other men's minds.
When I am not walking, I am reading;
read more

I love to lose myself in other men's minds.
When I am not walking, I am reading;
I cannot sit and think. Books think for me.
- Charles Lamb (used pseudonym Elia),

We have not read an author till we have seen his object, whatever
it may be, as he saw read more

We have not read an author till we have seen his object, whatever
it may be, as he saw it.

It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited
six thousand years for read more

It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited
six thousand years for an observer.

In a polite age almost every person becomes a reader, and
receives more instruction from the Press than the read more

In a polite age almost every person becomes a reader, and
receives more instruction from the Press than the Pulpit.