11 Quotes by Gabriel Zaid

Confronted with the choice between having time and having things, we’ve chosen to have things. Today it is a luxury to read what Socrates said, not because the books are expensive, but because our time is scarce.

The truly cultured are capable of owning thousands of unread books without losing their composure or their desire for more.

Quantity impresses, and anyone can appreciate it at first sight. Quality isn't as obvious, or as easy to appreciate. As if that weren't enough, quantity is easier to produce, less labor-intensive, cheaper, less risky than saying: Not this.

Hoy, es un lujo leer a Sócrates, no por el costo de los libros, sino del tiempo escaso.

Un libro no leído es un proyecto no cumplido. Tener a la vista libros no leídos es como girar cheques sin fondos: un fraude a las visitas.

Preserving everything is a form of negligence that causes a new kind of damage: the loss of what matters in a glut of the insignificant. To preserve everything is to lose everything.

The probability of finding a particular book increases in relation to the clarity of the store's focus, the diligence and shrewdness of the bookseller, and the size of the business.

Wealth is above all an accumulation of possibilities.

As publishing has become less expensive, the urge to write my own self has become the opportunity to publish my own self. Everyone now can afford to preach in the desert.