Quotation
Quote by Thomas Jefferson
I cannot live without books; but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.
Explore the idea
Understanding this quote
The speaker says books are essential to life, but admits that fewer would be enough if reading were pursued only for amusement. The contrast is between books as useful, purposeful resources and books kept merely for entertainment. Their value is not rejected; the speaker is saying that usefulness gives people reason to need a larger number.
Source & trust
About this quotation
- Source
- Founders Online, National Archives
- Format
- Official Statement
Explore the idea
Topics
Join the community
Keep meaningful words close.
Save quotes, follow people and topics, join conversations, and publish words of your own.
Conversation
0 comments
No comments yet.
Start the conversation about this quote.
“You play the way you practice.”
“I try to learn something new every day.”
“At GEMS Education, we believe that education is not only about academic achievement, but about preparing young people to thrive in a complex and fast changing world.”
“I hope to be remembered as a ‘voice’ encouraging people to think, rather than as a personality whose felt status and charisma stopped them thinking.”
“I have an endless curiosity.”
Read quote“Science and religion engage our complicated world from different perspectives, and at different levels. Between them, they offer us a kind of bi-focal lens like you might get in spectacles.”
“What I wanted in coming to Belleville is to spend less time behind the typewriter and more time on my boat.”
“To me, it’s when I’m riding down the road in my car and it feels like it did when I was 15 years old, and I don’t have to think about it and I just like it.”
“One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world.”
“This, and whatsoever I myself observed, after attaining years of discretion, for thirty or forty years, I laid up in the strong box (of my memory), and that I have written.”
The Echoes He Kept
Oren had always trusted empty rooms. They never interrupted, corrected, or looked disappointed. Then a group of adult learners asked him to open one—and slowly taught him that a voice becomes steadier when other voices answer.
Read Story