Benjamin Disraeli Book Quotations

Nine-tenths of the existing books are nonsense and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense.

An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.

How very seldom do you encounter in the world a man of great abilities, acquirements, experience, who will unmask his mind, unbutton his brains, and pour forth in careless and picturesque phrase all the results of his studies and observation; his knowledge of men, books, and nature. On the contrary, if a man has by any chance an original idea, he hoards it as if it were old gold; and rather avoids the subject with which he is most conversant, from fear that you may appropriate his best thoughts.

A book may be as great a thing as a battle.

A new acquaintance is like a new book. I prefer it, even if bad, to a classic.

Nine-tenths of all existing books are nonsense.

You asked me where I generally lived. In my workshop [i.e. in his study] in the mornings and always in the library in the evening. Books are companions even if you don’t open them.

A great thing is a great book; but a greater thing than all is the talk of a great man.

Books are the curse of the human race.

Some will read only old books, as if there were no valuable truths to be discovered in modern publications: others will only read new books, as if some valuable truths are not among the old. Some will not read a book because they know the author: others . . . would also read the man.

We are now in want of an art to teach how books are to be read rather than to read them. Such an art is practicable.

We cannot learn men from books.