Books, like men their authors, have no more than one way of coming into the world, but there are ten thousand to go out of it, and return no more.

Jonathan Swift · A Tale of a Tub (1704), dedication

Falsehood flies, and Truth comes limping after it.

Jonathan Swift · The Examiner [November 9, 1710]

I said the thing which was not.

Jonathan Swift · The source reads: “I said the thing which was not. (For they have no word in their language to express lying or falsehood.)” · The Houyhnhnms’ phrase for a lie, since they had no word for lying

He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers.

Jonathan Swift · Gulliver’s Travels. Voyage to Laputa, ch. 5

More Quotes from Books

So long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.

Victor Hugo · Les Misérables (1862), preface

"The king died and then the queen died" is a story. "The king died and then the queen died of grief" is a plot.

E. M. Forster · Aspects of the Novel (1927)

My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.

Emily Brontë · Catherine to Nelly Dean in the same chapter 9 speech, a moment before "Nelly, I am Heathcliff!"; the sentence before it says her love for Linton "is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it".

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“Books, like men their authors, have no more than one way of coming into the world, but there are ten thousand to go out of it, and return no more.”

“Falsehood flies, and Truth comes limping after it.”

“I said the thing which was not.”

“He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers.”

“So long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.”

“"The king died and then the queen died" is a story. "The king died and then the queen died of grief" is a plot.”

“My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.”