It's a good thing to turn your mind upside down now and then, like an hour-glass, to let the particles run the other way.

They go in [to the library] not because they need any certain volume but because they feel that there may be some book that needs them.

What is the virtue and service of a book? Only to help me live less gingerly and shabbily.

Man makes a great fuss about this planet which is only a ballbearing in the hub of the universe.

Lots of times you have to pretend to join a parade in which you're not really interested in order to get where you're going.

Mr. Gilbert had the earnest mania for self-improvement which has blighted the lives of so many young men.

A doctor is advertised by the bodies he cures. My business is advertised by the minds I stimulate. And let me tell you that the book business is different from other trades. People don't know they want books. I can see just by looking at you that your mind is ill for lack of books but you are blissfully unaware of it!