A Quote by Arthur Schopenhauer

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Quote Topics

Good Time Also Appropriation Books Buy Buying Buying Books Contents Could Good Thing Mistaken Purchase Read Rule Them Thing Would Would Be

Quote Author

Arthur Schopenhauer
German - Philosopher
February 22, 1788 - September 21, 1860

To buy books would be a good thing if we could also buy the time to read them; but the purchase of books is often mistaken for the assimilation and mastering of their contents.

Arthur Schopenhauer

To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them.

Arthur Schopenhauer

We buy books because we believe we're buying the time to read them.

Warren Zevon

I love telling people what to read. It's my favorite thing in the world, to buy books and force books on people, take bad books away from people, give them better books.

Ann Patchett

And tell them all about the books you've read. Better still, buy some more books and read them. That's an order. You can never read too many books.

P.B. Kerr

My depth of purse is not so great Nor yet my bibliophilic greed, That merely buying doth elate: The books I buy I like to read: Still e'en when dawdling in a mead, Beneath a cloudless summer sky, By bank of Thames, or Tyne, or Tweed, The books I read — I like to buy.

A. Edward Newton

We are in a great school, and we should be diligent to learn, and continue to store up the knowledge of heaven and of earth, and read good books, although I cannot say that I would recommend the reading of all books, for it is not all books which are good. Read good books, and extract from them wisdom and understanding as much as you possibly can, aided by the Spirit of God. (JD 12:124)

Brigham Young

The books we think we ought to read are poky, dull, and dry The books that we would like to read we are ashamed to buy The books that people talk about we never can recall And the books that people give us, oh, they're the worst of all.

Carolyn Wells

It is much simpler to buy books than to read them and easier to read them than to absorb their contents.

William Osler

If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books to read.

Carl Sagan

It takes me about a week and a half to read the typical book. I don't know how many ten-day spans I have left. Eventually the unread books on my shelves will have to be abandoned, or they will join me on the pyre. The book I'm about to purchase may be among them. We all buy books we won't live to read.

Ken Kalfus

The current publishing scene is extremely good for the big, popular books. They sell them brilliantly, market them and all that. It is not good for the little books. And really valuable books have been allowed to go out of print. In the old days, the publishers knew that these difficult books, the books that appeal only to a minority, were very productive in the long run. Because they're probably the books that will be read in the next generation.

Doris Lessing

... that when you're buying books, you're optimistically thinking you're buying the time to read them. (Paraphrase of Schopenhauer)

Arthur Schopenhauer

I'm always astonished when I go into Barnes & Noble at the number of people buying books, of course, but also at the variety of books they do buy and the extent to which they are not the big bestsellers.

Michael Korda

[D]on't ever apologize to an author for buying something in paperback, or taking it out from a library (that's what they're there for. Use your library). Don't apologize to this author for buying books second hand, or getting them from bookcrossing or borrowing a friend's copy. What's important to me is that people read the books and enjoy them, and that, at some point in there, the book was bought by someone. And that people who like things, tell other people. The most important thing is that people read.