Resta viator et lege! Stand still, traveller, and read!

-Anonymous
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum III, 371 (From Cyzicus in Mysia).

Tolle, lege, tolle, lege. Pick up and read, pick up and read.

-St Augustine originally Aurelius Augustinus
AD 397  Confessions, bk.8, ch.12.

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.50,'Of Studies'.

If a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, hehad need have a present wit; and if he read little he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.50,'Of Studies'.

When I am dead, I hope it may be said, 'His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.'

-Belloc, (Joseph) Hilaire Pierre
  'On His Books'.

Hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them.

-Book of Common Prayer
Of all the holy Scriptures. Collects, 2nd Sunday in  Advent.

It is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market†hares have no time to read.

-Brookner, Anita
  Ho"  tel du Lac, ch.2.

You, for example, clever to a fault, The rough and ready man who write apace, Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less.

-Browning, Robert
  Men and Women,'Bishop Blougram's  Apology'.

   You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.

-Bush, GeorgeW(alker)
Speaking in Townsend, Tennessee, 21 Feb.

What people read most of the time should be as worth mentioning as what they read almost none of the time.

-Critchfield, Richard Patrick
  An  American Looks at Britain.

You maydream freely whenyou listen tomusic as well as when you look at painting.When you read a book you are the slave of the author's mind.

-Gauguin, Paul
c.1888  Notes Synthe¤  tiques, quoted in  J Rewald Gauguin (1938).

His eyesight has always been weak, a sort of film over the eyes. A doctor advised him not to read, but he said, 'Then I should be ignorant', and he refused an operation because there was a thousandth chance he might go blind and so remain ignorant.

-Gregory, Lady Isabella Augusta ne¤  e Persse
  Of Sean O'Casey.  Journal entry, 8  Jun.

Ina real sense, peoplewhohavereadgood literaturehave lived more than people who cannot or will not read.

-Hayakawa, S(amuel) I(chiye)
Language in  Action.

He writes as fast as they can read, and he does not write himself down† His worst is better than any other person's best† His works (taken together) are almost like a new edition of human nature. This is indeed to be an author!

-Hazlitt,William
  Spirit of the Age,'Sir Walter Scott'.

Ihadthepaperbut Ididnot read it becauseIdidnot want to read about the war. I was going to forget the war. I had made a separate peace.

-Hemingway, Ernest Millar
  Frederic Henry.  A Farewell to  Arms, ch.34.

I read, and sigh, and wish I were a tree; For sure then I should grow To fruit or shade: at least some bird would trust Her household to me, and I should be just.

-Herbert, George
'Affliction (1)', collected in The Temple, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (published posthumously,1633).

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  Remark,14  Jul. Quoted in  James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.1.

In my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but atrue one, that Iknewalmost asmuchateighteenas I do now.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  Remark, 21  Jul. Quoted in  James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.1.

Read over your compositions, and where ever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  Remark, 30  Apr, quoting an old college tutor. Collected in James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.2.

For a man to write well, there are required three necessaries: to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style.

-Jonson, Ben
Timber: or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter (published 1640).