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Famous literary quotes with a biography of each quoted person.

BookBrowse's Favorite Literary Quotes

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The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book

The fact of knowing how to read is nothing, the whole point is knowing what to read.

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.

BookBrowse Book Club

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    When No One Else Will
    by Amanda Skenandore
    1940s Chicago nurse risks everything at an illegal women’s clinic during a high-profile trial of courage and sisterhood.
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    A Pair of Aces
    by Marie Benedict, Victoria Christopher Murray
    Two women on opposite sides of the law team up to bring down gangster Lucky Luciano in this gripping novel.

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    Feast
    by Catherine Kurtz
    In 19th-century France, a girl with a magical taste becomes a duc’s poison taster amid nobility and danger.
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    The Reimagining of Thornwood House
    by Jaleigh Johnson
    A witch and her ward discover a magical walking house and find the true meaning of home.
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    Summer's Never Over
    by Darby Bozeman
    A woman revisits a Southern summer camp where a counselor's death may not have been an accident.
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    The Jellyfish Problem
    by Tessa Yang
    A marine biologist rescues a Maine island menaced by a giant glowing jellyfish in this inventive debut.
Who Said...

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

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