It is easier to buy books than to read them, and easier to read them than to absorb them.

It is easier to buy books than to read them, and easier to read them than to absorb them.

Worthy books
Are not companions--they are solitudes:
We lose ourselves in them and all our cares.

Worthy books
Are not companions--they are solitudes:
We lose ourselves in them and all our cares.

A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.

A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.

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.

Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can't expect an angel to look out.

Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can't expect an angel to look out.

Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a poor substitute for life.

Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a poor substitute for life.

You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you read more

You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.

We get no good
By being ungenerous, even to a book,
And calculating profits--so much help
read more

We get no good
By being ungenerous, even to a book,
And calculating profits--so much help
By so much reading. It is rather when
We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge
Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound,
Impassioned for its beauty, and salt of truth--
'Tis then we get the right good from a book.

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.