But if it ever occurs to people to value the honor of the mind equally with the honor of the body, we shall get a social revolution of a quite unparalleled sort — and very different from the kind that is being made at the moment.

Here be dragons to be slain, here be rich rewards to gain; If we perish in the seeking, why, how small a thing is death!

Anythin' wrong leaves a kind of impression on the eye; brain trots along afterwards with the warnin'.

If people will bring dynamite into a powder factory, they must expect explosions.

Nothing is more vulgar than a careful avoidance of beginning a letter with the first person singular.

Books... are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with 'em, then we grow out of 'em and leave 'em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development.

[N]othing about a book is so unmistakable and so irreplaceable as the stamp of the cultured mind. I don't care what the story is about or what may be the momentary craze for books that appear to have been hammered out by the village blacksmith in a state of intoxication; the minute you get the easy touch of the real craftsman with centuries of civilisation behind him, you get literature.