A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

You can never be wise unless you love reading.

The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it.

He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.

People have now a-days, (said he,) got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do so much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken. I know nothing that can be best taught by lectures, except where experiments are to be shewn. You may teach chymistry by lectures.—You might teach making of shoes by lectures!

If a man begins to read in the middle of a book, and feels an inclination to go on, let him not quit it to go to the beginning. He may perhaps not feel again the inclination.

What is twice read is commonly better remembered that what is transcribed.