I never read the life of any important person without discovering that he knew more and could do more than I could ever hope to know or do in half a dozen lifetimes.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
We read deeply for varied reasons, most of them familiar: that we cannot know enough people profoundly enough; that we need to know ourselves better; that we require knowledge, not just of self and others, but of the way things are.
I really believe we read differently when we know even the most banal facts of an author's life.
I sometimes think that, since I started writing biographies, I've had more of a life in books than I have had in my real life.
The wisest man I ever knew in my whole life could not read or write.
Most of my life wasn't about knowledge from books, but experiential knowledge.
My grandfather had a particularly important influence on my life, even though I didn't visit him often, since he lived about three miles out of town and he died when I was six. He was remarkably curious about the world, and he read lots of books.
I read many things. I read to fill in my knowledge of the world.
In a real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read. It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.
He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.
He that knew all that learning ever writ, Knew only this - that he knew nothing yet.