book (n.)

book (v.)

book (adj.)

My desire is . . . that mine adversary had written a book.

Old Testament: Job xxxi. 35.

All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.

Michael De Montaigne (1533-1592): Book iii. Chap. v. Upon some Verses of Virgil.

My Book and Heart

Must never part.

Within the book and volume of my brain.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.

Beware of a man of one book.

A blessed companion is a book,—a book that fitly chosen is a life-long friend.

Douglas Jerrold (1803-1857): Books.

Was ever book containing such vile matter

So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell

In such a gorgeous palace!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 2.

He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 2.

Your face, my thane, is as a book where men

May read strange matters. To beguile the time,

Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,

Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,

But be the serpent under 't.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 5.

Go, little booke! go, my little tragedie!

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): Troilus and Creseide. Book v. Line 1798.

As good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself.

John Milton (1608-1674): Areopagitica.

A man will turn over half a library to make one book.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. v. Chap. viii. 1775.

If I were asked what book is better than a cheap book, I should answer that there is one book better than a cheap book,—and that is a book honestly come by.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): Before the U. S. Senate Committee on Patents, Jan. 29, 1886.

Deeper than did ever plummet sound

I 'll drown my book.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Tempest. Act v. Sc. 1.

For him was lever han at his beddes hed

A twenty bokes, clothed in black or red,

Of Aristotle, and his philosophie,

Than robes riche, or fidel, or sautrie.

But all be that he was a philosophre,

Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 295.

Macaulay is like a book in breeches. . . . He has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful.

Sydney Smith (1769-1845): Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 363.

That book in many's eyes doth share the glory

That in gold clasps locks in the golden story.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 3.

One writ with me in sour misfortune's book.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act v. Sc. 3.

'T is pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;

A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Line 51.

A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.

John Milton (1608-1674): Areopagitica.

A wise man poor

Is like a sacred book that's never read,—

To himself he lives, and to all else seems dead.

This age thinks better of a gilded fool

Than of a threadbare saint in wisdom's school.

Thomas Dekker (1572-1632): Old Fortunatus.

"There is no book so bad," said the bachelor, "but something good may be found in it."—Cervantes: Don Quixote, part ii. chap. iii.

"There is no book so bad," said the bachelor, "but something good may be found in it."

Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616): Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. iii.

Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book.

Old Testament: Isaiah xxx. 8.

Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate,

All but the page prescrib'd, their present state.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 77.

Alas! it is not till time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the Book of Human Life to light the fires of passion with from day to day, that man begins to see that the leaves which remain are few in number.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): Hyperion. Book iv. Chap. viii.

Thus with the year

Seasons return; but not to me returns

Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,

Or sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose,

Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;

But cloud instead, and ever-during dark

Surrounds me; from the cheerful ways of men

Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair

Presented with a universal blank

Of Nature's works, to me expung'd and raz'd,

And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iii. Line 40.

Boughs are daily rifled

By the gusty thieves,

And the book of Nature

Getteth short of leaves.

Thomas Hood (1798-1845): The Season.

I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of Songs and Sonnets here.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 1.

Often have I sighed to measure

By myself a lonely pleasure,—

Sighed to think I read a book,

Only read, perhaps, by me.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): To the Small Celandine.

Who God doth late and early pray

More of his grace than gifts to lend;

And entertains the harmless day

With a religious book or friend.

Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639): The Character of a Happy Life.

What a sense of security in an old book which Time has criticised for us!

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): Library of Old Authors.

Was ever book containing such vile matter

So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell

In such a gorgeous palace!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 2.

O little booke, thou art so unconning,

How darst thou put thy-self in prees for drede?

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): The Flower and the Leaf. Line 59.

The last thing that we find in making a book is to know what we must put first.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662): Thoughts. Chap. ix. 30.

A Frenchman must be always talking, whether he knows anything of the matter or not; an Englishman is content to say nothing when he has nothing to say.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vii. Chap. x.

In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book, or goes to an American play, or looks at an American picture or statue?

Sydney Smith (1769-1845): Review of Seybert's Annals of the United States, 1820.

Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book!

Old Testament: Job xix. 23.

Careful Words

book (n.)

book (v.)

book (adj.)