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Famous literary quotes with a biography of each quoted person.

BookBrowse's Favorite Literary Quotes

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The good writer, the great writer, has what I have called the three S's: The power to see, to sense, and to say. That is, he is perceptive, he is feeling, and he has the power to express in language what he observes and reacts to.

The less we know, the longer our explanations.

The library is the temple of learning, and learning has liberated more people than all the wars in history

The longest journey of any person is the journey inward

The low brow and the high brow

The moment we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold into a library, we've changed their lives forever, and for the better ...

The most successful people are those who are good at plan B

The only completely consistent people are the dead

The only real blind person at Christmas-time is he who has not Christmas in his heart.

The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.

The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant

The silence between the notes is as important as the notes themselves.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place

The thing that cowardice fears most is decision

The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

The worst thing about reading new books...

The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it.

There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don't

There is no science without fancy and no art without fact

There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are either well written or badly written. That is all.

There is no worse robber than a bad book.

These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves

They say that in the end truth will triumph, but it's a lie.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child

To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves

To make a library it takes two volumes and a fire. Two volumes and a fire, and interest. The interest alone will do if logs are few.

To win without risk is to triumph without glory

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Use what talents you possess: The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best

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