There is no doubt that there is power in reading! Even God in the bible said, ‘My people are destroyed because of a lack of knowledge’. And one way of the most effective and powerful ways of gaining knowledge is to read.

In this article we have compiled a list of successful individuals who attributed portions of their success to the power of reading. Let’s jump into the minds of these successful individuals and hear what they have to say about reading:

1. Bill Gates

Bill Gates is an American business magnate, philanthropist, investor, humanitarian and author who is best known as the founder of  Microsoft.

What Bill Gates said about Reading:

“I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.”

2. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a social activist and Baptist minister who played a key role in the American civil rights movement.

What Martin Luther King Jr. said about Reading:

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”

3. Barack Obama

Barack Obama was the 44th president of the United States. He was also an American Attorney and Politician.

What Barack Obama said about Reading:

“Reading is important. If you know how to read then the whole world opens up to you”

“Reading is the gateway skill that makes all other learning possible.”

4. Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He was also a British army officer, writer and statesman.

What Windston Churchill. said about Reading:

“If you cannot read all your books…fondle them—peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them, at any rate, be your acquaintances.”

5. Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001.

What Bill Clinton said about Reading:

“When I was a young man just out of law school and eager to get on with my life, on a whim I briefly put aside my reading preference for fiction and history and bought one of those how-to books: How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life, by Alan Lakein. The book’s main point was the necessity of listing short-, medium-, and long-term life goals, then categorizing them in order of their importance, with the A group being the most important, the B group next, and the C the last, then listing under each goal specific activities designed to achieve them. I still have that paperback book, now almost thirty years old. And I’m sure I have that old list somewhere buried in my papers, though I can’t find it. However, I do remember the A list. I wanted to be a good man, have a good marriage and children, have good friends, make a successful political life, and write a great book.”

6. Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was a printer, diplomat, statesman,scientist author, printer, political theorist, postmaster,  inventor, and civic activist.

What Benjamin Franklin said about Reading:

“From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books.”

7. Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, writer, statesman, abolitionist and orator.  He became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in New York and Massachusetts, after escaping from slavery, gaining note for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings.

What Frederick Douglass said about Reading:

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”

“Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.”

8. Lee Kuan Yew 

Lee Kuan Yew was the first Prime Minister of Singapore, governing for 30 years.

What  Lee Kuan Yew said about Reading:

“My definition of an educated man is a man who never stops learning and wants to learn. I am not interested in whether a man has a Ph.D or not, or an M.A. for that matter, or a diploma. Mao never had one, neither had Khrushchev, nor Stalin.”

9. Li Ka Shing

Li Ka-shing  is a Hong Kong business magnate, philanthropist, billionaire and investor.

What Li Ka Shing said about Reading:

“I bought secondhand books whenever I had spare money and absorbed them before trading them in for more books. Even today I read before going to bed every night.”

10. Ben Carson

Ben Carson is former neurosurgeon, an author and a politician.

What Ben Carson said about Reading:

“You have to actually exercise your mind in order to get it to be active and to get it to be creative and reading is a tremendous way to do that.”

11. Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison was an American businessman and inventor, he has been described as America’s greatest inventor.

What Thomas Edison said about Reading:

“When I want to discover something, I begin by reading up everything that has been done along that line in the past – that’s what all the books in the library are for. I see what has been accomplished at great labor and expense in the past. I gather the data of many thousands more. The three essentials to achieve anything worthwile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-it-iveness; third, common sense”

12. Narendra Modi

Narendra Modi is  the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014.

What Narendra Modi said about Reading:

“If there is education, there will be everything in life. Government can make roads, hospitals and also construct school buildings. But your homes can brighten up only if your children are educated. I am confident that if we focus on education, our society will certainly develop.”

Pick up a great book and invest in your mind.