Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes

I think books can give rise to empowerment.

Books give not wisdom where none was before. But where some is, there reading makes it more.

Books were my window on the world. Growing up at the Elephant and Castle, which was very rough, my paradise was the library.

In this world good books make up for the absence of good companions, so that all Indians, if they want to live happily in jail, should accustom themselves to reading good books.

Though he was not a reader himself, my father understood that reading is not just an escape. It is access to a better way of life.

I grew up in a rural area. Books are what helped me transcend my circumstances.

Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. You need to read. . . . We are quite persuaded that the very best way for you to be spending your leisure time, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master’s service. Paul cries, “Bring the books” — join in the cry.

I wish I had known that education is the key. That knowledge is power. Now I pick up books and watch educational shows with my husband. I'm seeing how knowledge can elevate you.

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

It is important to be well read, at least a little bit.

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.

If you have a book, you have a friend.

What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.

Read in order to live.

Read books. They are good for us.

One of the great things about books is you can afford to do anything.

An ordinary man can surround himself with two thousand books and thenceforward have at least one place in the world in which it is possible to be happy.

My Alma mater was books, a good library... I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.

Man is what he reads.

Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.

As a kid, books were my great escape and my salvation.

Learning has freed more men than all the armies in human history.

Freedmen have the natural thirst for knowledge, aspire to power and influence… coupled with learning, and are excited by the special study of books.

For a person who grew up in the '30s and '40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, 'Here I am, read me.' Over time I have learned I am at my best around books.

Reading equals hope times change.