There was a little man, and he had a little soul; And he said, Little Soul, let us try, try, try!

Can we ring the bells backward? Can we unlearn the arts that pretend to civilize, and then burn the world? There is a march of science; but who shall beat the drums for its retreat?

What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all the souls of all the writers that have bequeathed their labours to these Bodleians were reposing here as in some dormitory, or middle state. I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage; and the odor of their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of the sciential apples which grew amid the happy orchard.

And when once the young heart of a maiden is stolen, The maiden herself will steal after it soon.

I love to lose myself in other men's minds.... Books think for me.

I hate a man who swallows [his food], affecting not to know what he is eating. I suspect his taste in higher matters.

Merit, God knows, is very little rewarded.