The reading or non-reading a book will never keep down a single petticoat.

The best prophet of the future is the past.

Self-love for ever creeps out, like a snake, to sting anything which happens to stumble upon it.

Yes! ready money is Aladdin's lamp.

Her great merit is finding out mine; there is nothing so amiable as discernment.

It is useless to tell one not to reason but to believe; you might as well tell a man not to wake but sleep.

There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more.

Nothing can confound a wise man more than laughter from a dunce.

If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.

Shelley is truth itself and honour itself notwithstanding his out-of-the-way notions about religion.

Women hate everything which strips off the tinsel of sentiment, and they are right, or it would rob them of their weapons.

But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.

It is very iniquitous to make me pay my debts, you have no idea of the pain it gives one.

Lovers may be and indeed generally are enemies, but they never can be friends, because there must always be a spice of jealousy and a something of Self in all their speculations.

A woman who gives any advantage to a man may expect a lover but will sooner or later find a tyrant.

For what were all these country patriots born? To hunt, and vote, and raise the price of corn?

I would rather have a nod from an American, than a snuff- box from an emperor.

I shall soon be six-and-twenty. Is there anything in the future that can possibly console us for not being always twenty-five?

The reading or non-reading a book will never keep down a single petticoat.

I slept and dreamt that life was beauty; I woke and found that life was duty.

Every day confirms my opinion on the superiority of a vicious life, and if Virtue is not its own reward, I don't know any other stipend annexed to it.

All farewells should be sudden, when forever.

Romances I ne'er read like those I have seen.

Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away; A single laugh demolished the right arm Of his country.

Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure; men love in haste but they detest at leisure.

The fact is that my wife if she had common sense would have more power over me than any other whatsoever, for my heart always alights upon the nearest perch.

What should I have known or written had I been a quiet, mercantile politician or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence.

I am sure of nothing so little as my own intentions.

Wives in their husbands' absences grow subtler, And daughters sometimes run off with the butler.

Sincerity may be humble but she cannot be servile.

There is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state?

Shakespeare's name, you may depend on it, stands absurdly too high and will go down.

Opinions are made to be changed or how is truth to be got at?

I live not in myself, but I becom Portion of that around me: and to me High mountains are a feelin, but the hum of human cities torture.

What the war did was give me the opportunity of three years of continuous reading, and it was in the course of reading that I became convinced that I should become an economist.

It is a common temptation of Satan to make us give up the reading of the Word and prayer when our enjoyment is gone; as if it were of no use to read the Scriptures when we do not enjoy them, and as if it were no use to pray when we have no spirit of prayer.

And that's how I start myself. I usually go back a couple of pages, maybe to the beginning of the chapter, and I start reading. And as I'm reading, I'm tweaking - putting in a different word, changing the syntax, putting that clause over there, you know that sort of thing.

The greatest gift is the passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination.

I had plenty of pimples as a kid. One day I fell asleep in the library. When I woke up, a blind man was reading my face.

I get letters from readers who say that they have always hated reading, but somebody suggested one of my books, they actually finished the book and enjoyed it, and they're going on to read another book. I'm thrilled that they have figured out that reading is fun.

I was reading the poems of Rochester. Rochester made himself out to be bisexual, but I think that was only to shock. Most of his poetry is sexual, even pornographic.

I like the storytelling and reading the letters, the long-distance dedications. Anytime in radio that you can reach somebody on an emotional level, you're really connecting.

I was reading a book... 'the history of glue' - I couldn't put it down.

Dr. Phil was very helpful and caring. I believe he helped all of us there and watching how to better relate, understand, and communicate with our families and loved ones. Dr. Phil recommended reading my new book.

No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. She will not want new fashions nor regret the loss of expensive diversions or variety of company if she can be amused with an author in her closet.

A book worth reading is worth buying.

I don't think anyone wants a reader to be completely lost - certainly not to the point of giving up - but there's something to be said for a book that isn't instantly disposable, that rewards a second reading.

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

Every single pleasure I can imagine or have experienced is more delightful, more of a pleasure, if you take it in small sips, if you take your time. Reading is not an exception.