This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

Books, books, books!
I had found the secret of a garret room
Piled high with cases in read more

Books, books, books!
I had found the secret of a garret room
Piled high with cases in my father's name;
Piled high, packed large,--where, creeping in and out
Among the giant fossils of my past,
Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs
Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there
At this or that box, pulling through the gap,
In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy,
The first book first. And how I felt it beat
Under my pillow, in the morning's dark,
An hour before the sun would let me read!
My books!
At last, because the time was ripe,
I chanced upon the poets.

A book is a gift you can open again and again.

A book is a gift you can open again and again.

That place that does contain
My books, the best companions, is to me
A glorious court, where read more

That place that does contain
My books, the best companions, is to me
A glorious court, where hourly I converse
With the old sages and philosophers;
And sometimes, for variety, I confer
With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels;
Calling their victories, if unjustly got,
Unto a strict account, and, in my fancy,
Deface their ill-placed statues.

I've never know any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage.

I've never know any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage.

A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.

A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.

You, O Books, are the golden vessels of the temple, the arms of
the clerical militia with which the read more

You, O Books, are the golden vessels of the temple, the arms of
the clerical militia with which the missiles of the most wicked
are destroyed; fruitful olives, vines of Engaddi, fig-trees
knowing no sterility; burning lamps to be ever held in the hand.

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.

Man ceased to be an ape, vanquished the ape, on the day the first book was written.

Man ceased to be an ape, vanquished the ape, on the day the first book was written.