“It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the best books.”

“Happy will the house be in which the relationships are formed from character.”

“Books are the best type of influence of the past...Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will not fit this.”

“Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst...They are for nothing but to inspire.”

“But here we are; and, if we tarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best. See to it, only, that thyself is here;-and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being, shall not be absent from the chamber which thou sittest.”

“All writing is by the grace of God. People do not deserve to have good writing, they are so pleased with bad. In these sentences that you show me, I can find no beauty, for I see death in every clause and every word. There is a fossil or a mummy character which pervades this book. The best sepulchers, the vastest catacombs, Thebes and Cairo, Pyramids, are sepulchers to me. I like gardens and nurseries. Give me initiative, spermatic, prophesying, man-making words.”

“No book has worth by itself, but by the relation to what you have from many other books, it weighs.”