On Reading

Reading serves for delight, for ornament, for ability. The crafty contemn it; the simple admire it; the wise use it.
~Francis Bacon

Happy is he who has laid up in his youth, and held fast in all fortune, a genuine and passionate love for reading.
~Rufus Choate

If the riches of the Indies, or the crowns of all the kingdoms of Europe, were laid at my feet in exchange for my love of reading, I would spurn them all.
~Fenelon

You may gain knowledge by reading, but you must separate the chaff from the wheat by thinking.
~Osborn

Always have a book at hand, in the parlor, on the table, for the family; a book of condensed thought and striking anecdote, of sound maxims and truthful apothegms. It will impress on your own mind a thousand valuable suggestions, and teach your children a thousand lessons of truth and duty. Such a book is a casket of jewels for your household.
~Tryon Edwards

He picked something valuable out of everything he read.
~Pliny

We should accustom the mind to keep the best company by introducing it only to the best books.
~Sydney Smith

Never read a book through merely because you have begun it.
~Witherspoon

If we encountered a man of rare intellect we should ask him what books he read.
~Emerson

The first time I read an excellent work, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend; and when I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting with an old one.
~Goldsmith