The reason that there are so few good books written is that so few people who write know anything.

The reason that there are so few good books written is that so few people who write know anything.

He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He read more

He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.

Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.

Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.

Unlike other people, our reviewers are powerful because they believe in nothing.

Unlike other people, our reviewers are powerful because they believe in nothing.

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought read more

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking -- and since it cannot, in order read more

To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking -- and since it cannot, in order to become its echo I have, in a way, to silence it. I bring to this incessant speech the decisiveness, the authority of my own silence.

Quotation... A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because they give his meaning better than he read more

Quotation... A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because they give his meaning better than he can give it himself, or because they are beautiful or witty, or because he expects them to touch a cord of association in his reader, or because he wishes to show that he is learned and well read. Quotations due to the last motive are invariably ill-advised; the discerning reader detects it and is contemptuous; the undiscerning is perhaps impressed, but even then is at the same time repelled, pretentious quotations being the surest road to tedium.

Books are men of higher stature; the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear.

Books are men of higher stature; the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear.

The wise weigh their words on a scale with gold.

The wise weigh their words on a scale with gold.