Professor Faber quotes help you gain his wisdom.
Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is the story of a dystopian future where books are banned. And “firemen” burn any books they find.
Professor Faber is an old man who befriends Guy Montag. He starts questioning the world around him and eventually helps Montag escape the city.
Faber is wise and eloquent, with a deep love of books. He’s also one of the few people in the story who isn’t afraid to speak his mind.
Here are 20 quotes from Professor Faber, with page numbers, that will make you think about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness:
Fahrenheit 451 Quotes With Page Numbers
Who Is Professor Faber From Fahrenheit 451?
Professor Faber is an elderly academic from Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451. He is a former professor who is no longer needed in society as the urge for knowledge and intellectual development is no longer welcomed.
Despite his age and the conformist attitudes of the majority, Faber is an avid collector and admirer of books, making him an outlier in an oppressive society. Faber is an intelligent and wise man who deeply understands the importance of books and knowledge.
Faber calls himself a coward for not defending books and knowledge when he had the chance. But he’s willing to help Guy Montag do what he should’ve done.
He shows him that what matters are the stories of people’s lives, which can be found in books. Faber is ultimately courageous and willing to risk his safety to help others understand the power of books and knowledge.
Professor Faber Quotes With Page Numbers Part 2
“I don’t talk things, sir. I talk the meaning of things.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about: knowledge, Faber, Page 71
“Christ is one of the ‘family’ now. I often wonder if God recognizes his own son the way we’ve dressed him up, or is it dressed him down? He’s regular peppermint stick now, all sugar crystal and saccharine – when he isn’t making veiled references to certain commercial products that ever worshiper absolutely needs.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about society, ignorance, religion, Faber, Page 77
“Mr. Montag, you are looking at a coward. I saw the way things were going a long time back. I said nothing. I am one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when no one would listen to the ‘guilty,’ but I did not speak and thus became guilty myself.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about society, Faber, Page 78
Guy Montag Quotes From Fahrenheit 451
“You’re a hopeless romantic,” said Faber. “It would be funny if it were not serious. It’s not books you need, it’s some of the things that once were in books. The same things could be in the ‘parlor families’ today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios, and televisors, but are not. No, no it’s not books at all you’re looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type or receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us. Of course you couldn’t know this, of course you still can’t understand what I mean when i say all this. You are intuitively right, that’s what counts.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about books, knowledge, Faber, Pages 78, 79
Fahrenheit 451 Quotes About Books
“Do you know why books such as this are so important? Because they have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores. It has features. This book can go under the microscope. You’d find life under the glass, streaming past in infinite profusion. The more pores, the more truthfully recorded details of life per square inch you can get on a sheet of paper, the more ‘literary’ you are. That’s my definition anyway. Telling detail. Fresh detail. The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies. So now you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about books, Faber, Page 79
“The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about books, knowledge, Professor Faber, Page 79
“The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about books, Faber, Page 79
“So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless. We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about books, society, ignorance, censorship, Profesor Faber, Page 79
Fahrenheit 451 Quotes About Censorship
“The books are to remind us what asses and fool we are. They’re Caeser’s praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, “Remember, Caeser, thou art mortal.” Most of us can’t rush around, talking to everyone, know all the cities of the world, we haven’t time, money or that many friends. The things you’re looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine percent of them is in a book. Don’t ask for guarantees. And don’t look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about books, knowledge, Faber, Page 82
“Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about books, ignorance, Faber, Page 83
“Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about society, Faber, Page 84
“Those who don’t build must burn. It’s as old as history and juvenile delinquents.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about fire, ignorance, Faber, Page 85
“They say you retain knowledge even when you’re sleeping, if someone whispers in your ear.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about knowledge, Faber, Page 89
“Pity, Montag, pity. Don’t haggle and nag them; you were so recently of them yourself. They are so confident that they will run on forever. But they won’t run on. They don’t know that this is all one hug big blazing meteor that makes a pretty fire in space, but that some day it’ll have to hit. They see only the blaze, the pretty fire, as you saw it.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about fire, Faber, Pages 99, 100
“If there were no war, if there was peace in the world, I’d say fine, have fun! But, Montag, you mustn’t go back to being just a fireman. All isn’t well with the world.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about society, Faber, Page 100
“Man, when I was young I shoved my ignorance in people’s faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about ignorance, Faber, Page 100
“If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about ignorance, knowledge, Faber, Page 100
Professor Faber Quotes Part 3 And Page Numbers
“But remember that the Captain belongs to the most dangerous enemy to truth and freedom, the solid unmoving cattle of the majority.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about censorship, ignorance, society, Faber, Page 104
“Oh God, the terrible tyranny of the majority. We all have our harps to play. And it’s up to you to know with which ear you’ll listen.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about society, Faber, Page 104
“At least you were a fool about the right things,” said Faber.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about ignorance, Faber, Page 124
How does Faber influence Montag quotes
“You’re a hopeless romantic,” said Faber. “It would be funny if it were not serious. It’s not books you need, it’s some of the things that once were in books. The same things could be in the ‘parlor families’ today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios, and televisors, but are not. No, no it’s not books at all you’re looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type or receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us. Of course you couldn’t know this, of course you still can’t understand what I mean when i say all this. You are intuitively right, that’s what counts.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Faber, Pages 78, 79
“Do you know why books such as this are so important? Because they have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores. It has features. This book can go under the microscope. You’d find life under the glass, streaming past in infinite profusion. The more pores, the more truthfully recorded details of life per square inch you can get on a sheet of paper, the more ‘literary’ you are. That’s my definition anyway. Telling detail. Fresh detail. The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies. So now you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Faber, Page 79
“The books are to remind us what asses and fool we are. They’re Caeser’s praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, “Remember, Caeser, thou art mortal.” Most of us can’t rush around, talking to everyone, know all the cities of the world, we haven’t time, money or that many friends. The things you’re looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine percent of them is in a book. Don’t ask for guarantees. And don’t look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Faber, Page 82
“Pity, Montag, pity. Don’t haggle and nag them; you were so recently of them yourself. They are so confident that they will run on forever. But they won’t run on. They don’t know that this is all one hug big blazing meteor that makes a pretty fire in space, but that some day it’ll have to hit. They see only the blaze, the pretty fire, as you saw it.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Faber, Pages 99, 100
“If there were no war, if there was peace in the world, I’d say fine, have fun! But, Montag, you mustn’t go back to being just a fireman. All isn’t well with the world.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Faber, Page 100
Granger quotes Fahrenheit 451
“Better to keep it in the old heads, where no one can see it or suspect it. We are all bits and pieces of history and literature and international law. Byron, Tom Paine, Machiavelli, or Christ, it’s here. And the hour’s late. And the war’s begun. And we are out here, and the city is there, all wrapped up in its own coat of a thousand colors… All we want to do is keep the knowledge we think we will need intact and safe. We’re not out to incite or anger anyone yet. For if we are destroyed, the knowledge is dead, perhaps for good… Right now we have a horrible job; we’re waiting for the war to begin and, as quickly, end. It’s not pleasant, but then we’re not in control, we’re the odd minority crying in the wilderness. When the war’s over, perhaps we can be of some use in the world.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Granger, Page 145
“But you can’t make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. It can’t last.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about: society, ignorance, Granger, Page 146
“The most important single thing we had to pound into ourselves is that we were not important, we musn’t be pedants; we were not to feel superior to anyone else in the world. We’re nothing more than dust jackets for books, of no significance otherwise.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about books, Granger, Page 146
“And when the war’s over, someday, some year, the books can be written again, the people will be called in, one by one, to recite what they know and we’ll set it up in type until another Dark Age, when we might have to do the whole damn thing over again. But that’s the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and worth doing.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about books, Granger, Pages 146, 147
“There was a silly damn bird called a phoenix back before Christ, every few hundred years he built a pyre and burnt himself up. He must have been the first cousin to Man. But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we’re doing the same thing, over and over, but we’re got on damn thing the phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did. We know all the damn silly things we’ve done for a thousand years and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, someday we’ll stop making the … funeral pyres and jumping in the middle of them. We pick up a few more people that remember every generation.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about fire, knowledge, Granger, Page 156
“And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn’t crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the backyard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I’ve never gotten over his death. Often I think what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands? He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Granger, Page 149
“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, about books, Granger, Pages 149,150
“Stuff your eyes with wonder, he said, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Granger, Page 150
“It doesn’t matter what you do…so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Granger, Page 150
“Some day the load we’re carrying with us may help someone. But even when we had the books on hand, a long time ago, we didn’t use what we got out of them. We went right on insulting the dead. We went right on spitting in the graves of all the poor ones who died before us. We’re going to meet a lot of lonely people in the next week and the next month and the next year. And when they ask us what we’re doing, you can say, ‘We’re remembering’. That’s where we’ll win out in the long run. And some day we’ll remember so much that we’ll build the biggest … steam-shovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in and cover it up. Come on now, we’re going to go build a mirror-factory first and put out nothing but mirrors for the next year and take a long look in them.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Granger, Page 157
Mildred Quotes With Page Numbers
What does Faber say to Montag?
“You’re a hopeless romantic,” said Faber. “It would be funny if it were not serious. It’s not books you need, it’s some of the things that once were in books.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Faber to Montag, Page 78
What does Professor Faber represent?
Professor Faber represents society’s declining intellectual life and the potential to resist and overcome oppressive systems through knowledge and education.
Why does Professor Faber call himself a coward?
Professor Faber calls himself a coward because he did not take action to change the direction of society when he had the chance but instead chose to remain quiet and not participate in the fight for intellectual freedom.
What does Faber say about himself?
“Mr. Montag, you are looking at a coward. I saw the way things were going a long time back. I said nothing. I am one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when no one would listen to the ‘guilty,’ but I did not speak and thus became guilty myself.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Faber, Page 78
What is Faber’s flaw?
Faber’s flaw is his reluctance and cowardice, preventing him from acting and revolting against the fireman institution.