Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can't expect an angel to look out.

Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can't expect an angel to look out.

Every man is a volume if you know how to read him.

Every man is a volume if you know how to read him.

My test of a good novel is dreading to begin the last chapter.

My test of a good novel is dreading to begin the last chapter.

Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own.

Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own.

A novel is never anything, but a philosophy put into images.

A novel is never anything, but a philosophy put into images.

Books! I dunno if I ever told you this, but books are the greatest gift one person can give another.

Books! I dunno if I ever told you this, but books are the greatest gift one person can give another.

We get no good
By being ungenerous, even to a book,
And calculating profits--so much help
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We get no good
By being ungenerous, even to a book,
And calculating profits--so much help
By so much reading. It is rather when
We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge
Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound,
Impassioned for its beauty, and salt of truth--
'Tis then we get the right good from a book.

The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as read more

The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts.

The Wise
(Minstrel or Sage,) out of their books are clay;
But in their books, as from read more

The Wise
(Minstrel or Sage,) out of their books are clay;
But in their books, as from their graves they rise.
Angels--that, side by side, upon our way,
Walk with and warn us!