I read for three things; first, to know what the world has done the last twenty-four hours, and is about to do today; second, for the knowledge that I specially want in my work; and third, for what will bring my mind into a proper mood.

Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without himself.

Speak of the appetite for drink; or of a bon-vivant's relish for dinner! What are these mere animal throes and ragings compared with those fantasies of taste, of those yearning of the imagination, of those insatiable appetites of intellect, which bewilder a student in a great bookseller's temptation-hall.

The bibliophile is the master of his books, the bibliomaniac their slave.

There was never a person who did anything worth doing that he did not receive more than he gave.

A little library, growing every year, is an honorable part of a man’s history. It is a man’s duty to have books.

The most efficacious secular book that ever was published in America is the newspaper.