That wonderful book, while it obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved by those who are too simple to admire it.
This is the best book ever written by any man on the wrong side of a question of which he is profoundly ignorant.
The hearts of men are their books; events are their tutors; great actions are their eloquence.
Books are becoming everything to me. If I had at this moment any choice in life, I would bury myself in one of those immense libraries...and never pass a waking hour without a book before me.
What a blessing it is to love books as I love them;- to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal!
It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgement used at preparatory schools in England.
Western literature has been more influenced by the Bible than any other book.
If anybody would make me the greatest king that ever lived, with palaces, and gardens and fine dinners, and wine, and coaches, and beautiful clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition that I would not read books, I would not be a king.
The English Bible - a book which, if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.
In the modern languages there was not, six hundred years ago, a single volume which is now read. The library of our profound scholar must have consisted entirely of Latin books.
I would rather be poor in a cottage full of books than a king without the desire to read.