The Book-Lovers' Anthology

The sick man is not to be moaned that hath his health in his sleeve. In the experience and use of this sentence, which is most true, consisteth all the commodity I reap of books...

And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek, From thence, to honour thee, I will not seek For names; but call forth thundering Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles to us, Pa...

It is for the corner of a library, or to amuse a neighbour, a kinsman, or a friend of mine withal, who by this image may happily take pleasure to renew acquaintance and to recon...

Old Story Books! Old Story Books! we owe ye much, old friends, Bright-coloured threads in Memory's warp, of which Death holds the ends. Who can forget ye? who can spurn the mini...

Dr. Johnson advised me to-day, to have as many books about me as I could; that I might read upon any subject upon which I had a desire for instruction at the time. 'What you rea...

The opinion of the great body of the reading public is very materially influenced even by the unsupported assertions of those who assume a right to criticize. Nor is the public...

For the disposition and collocation of that knowledge which we preserve in writing, it consisteth in a good digest of commonplaces, wherein I am not ignorant of the prejudice im...

Some that turn over all books, and are equally searching in all papers; that write out of what they presently find or meet, without choice; by which means it happens that what t...

I confess that I have much of that feeling in which the superstition concerning relics has originated; and I am sorry when I see the name of a former owner obliterated in a book...

By every sort of taste your work is graced. Vast stores of modern anecdote we find, With good old story quaintly interlaced-- The theme as various as the reader's mind.

How many paltry, foolish, painted things, That now in coaches trouble every street, Shall be forgotten, whom no poet sings, Ere they be well wrapped in their winding-sheet! Wher...

What at first view appeared an inconsistency is a proof at once of this people's wisdom and refinement. Even allowing the works of their ancestors better written than theirs, ye...

The great consulting room of a wise man is a library. When I am in perplexity about life, I have but to come here, and, without fee or reward, I commune with the wisest souls th...

... He [the translator of Homer] will find one English book and one only, where, as in the _Iliad_ itself, perfect plainness of speech is allied with perfect nobleness; and that...

Health ought to be nicely respected by a student. For the labours of the mind are as far beyond them of the body, as the diseases of the one are above the other; and how can a s...

While the plodding votary of _meaning_ is anxiously inquiring out the sense of the oracle, his fellow-worshipper, remembering that our _eyes_ were not given us for nothing, is e...

In error obstinate, in wrangling loud, For trifles eager, positive, and proud, Forth steps at last the self-applauding wight, Of points and letters, chaff and straws, to write:...

Of this fair volume which we World do name, If we the sheets and leaves could turn with care, Of Him who it corrects, and did it frame, We clear might read the art and wisdom ra...

Ye dear companions of my silent hours, Whose pages oft before my eyes would strew So many sweet and variegated flowers-- Dear Books, awhile, perhaps for ay, adieu! The dark clou...

A mere scholar, who knows nothing but books, must be ignorant even of them. 'Books do not teach the use of books.' How should he know anything of a work who knows nothing of the...

They [the Stationers] have so pestered their printing-houses and shops with fruitless volumes that the ancient and renowned authors are almost buried among them as forgotten; an...

There, obedient to her praying, did I read aloud the poems Made to Tuscan flutes, or instruments more various of our own; Read the pastoral parts of Spenser--or the subtle inter...

Books are the best type of the influence of the past.... The theory of books is noble. The scholar of the first age received into him the world around; brooded thereon; gave it...

'No praise of Addison's style,' Lord Lytton declares, 'can exaggerate its merits. Its art is perfectly marvellous. No change of time can render the workmanship obsolete. His man...

Study our manuscripts, those myriads Of letters, which have passed 'twixt thee and me; Thence write our annals, and in them will be To all whom love's subliming fire invades Rul...

I saw a boy with eager eye Open a book upon a stall, And read, as he'd devour it all; Which when the stall-man did espy, Soon to the boy I heard him call, 'You, Sir, you never b...

But man, who knows no good unmixed and pure, Oft finds a poison where he sought a cure; For grave deceivers lodge their labours here, And cloud the science they pretend to clear...

Since Rouse desires thee, and complains That, though by promise his, Thou yet appear'st not in thy place Among the literary noble stores, Given to his care, But, absent, leavest...

The author of that work was the greatest natural philosopher that ever enlightened mankind. His biographers are now disputing whether at one period of his life he was not of uns...

That an unskilful hand had carved this print You'd say at once, seeing the living face; But, finding here no jot of me, my friends, Laugh at the botching artist's mis-attempt.

The _Vindication_ was the work of Charles Leslie, the non-juror; _Pharamond_, a romance dealing with the Frankish empire, by La Calprenède; _Cassandra_ is wrong--the French work...

P. 325. _Bale._--'I was called to London to wait upon the Duke of Norfolk, who having at my sole request bestowed the Arundelian Library on the Royal Society, sent to me to take...

So in likewise, I am in such case, Though I naught can, I would be called wise; Also I may set another in my place Which may for me my books exercise; Or else I shall ensue the...

SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM (1564-1616). 'Who will believe my verse' 55 'Study is like the heaven's glorious sun' 159 'How well he's read' 162 Books and Eyesight 164 Reading for Love's...

One of the most delightful of the _Last Essays of Elia_ is entitled 'Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading', a title which would serve very well to indicate the contents of thi...

EMERSON, RALPH WALDO (1803-82). A Company of the Wisest and the Wittiest 6 The Theory of Books 21 The Book the Highest Delight 28 The pleasure derived from Books 29 Our Debt to...