Voltaire

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.

The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?

Injustice in the end produces independence.

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.

When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.

The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.

To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any other exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object.

If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must lay it down and commence living on its hint… What I began by reading I must finish by acting.

The last book I read was the book I’ve been rereading most of my life, The Fountainhead.

Never judge a book by its movie.

What can we see, read, acquire, but ourselves. Take the book, my friend, and read your eyes out, you will never find there what I find.

Books are the mirrors of the soul.

As a child I used to read Gone with the Wind over and over again. I wanted to be Scarlett O’Hara. I never wanted to believe that it was possible that there could be infidelity. I never wanted to be believe that it was even possible for a man to look another way, even for a moment. My bubble of monogamy was pierced in a harsh way.

I love books.

Just the omission of Jane Austen’s books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn’t a book in it.

All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.

I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.