One can live with the thought of one's own death. It is the thought of the death of the words read more

One can live with the thought of one's own death. It is the thought of the death of the words and books that is terrifying for that is the deeper extinction.

These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves.

These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves.

Books are the blessed chloroform of the mind.

Books are the blessed chloroform of the mind.

That is a good book which is opened with expectation and closed in profit.

That is a good book which is opened with expectation and closed in profit.

Book lovers will understand me, and they will know too that part of the pleasure of a library lies in read more

Book lovers will understand me, and they will know too that part of the pleasure of a library lies in its very existence

Deep versed in books and shallow in himself.

Deep versed in books and shallow in himself.

A man of one book.
[Lat., Homo unius libri.]

A man of one book.
[Lat., Homo unius libri.]

Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading read more

Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life.

We get no good
By being ungenerous, even to a book,
And calculating profits--so much help
read more

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.