“Now may this little Book a blessing beTo those that love this little Book, and me:And may its Buyer have no cause to say,His money is but lost, or thrown away.”

“It may be whispered to those uninitiated people who are anxious to know the habits and make the acquaintance of men of letters, that there are no race of people who talk about books, or, perhaps, who read books, so little as literary men.”

“May blessings be upon the head of Cadmus, the Phoenicians, or whoever it was that invented books.”

“But wherever the truth may lie, this much is crystal-clear: our bigger-and-better society is now like a hypochondriac, so obsessed with its own economic health as to have lost the capacity to remain healthy. . . . Nothing could be more salutary at this stage than a little healthy contempt for a plethora of material blessings.”

“I may even swagger a little, and, as I read in a book somewhere, 'push myself forward like a train.”

“Time has been lost and opportunity thrown away, but I am yet a young man, and may retrieve it.”