No man is ever old enough to know better.

The poor are the only consistent altruists; they sell all they have and give it to the rich.

We are more inclined to regret our virtues than our vices; but only the very honest will admit this.

Book-love, I say again, lasts throughout life, it never flags or fails, but, like Beauty itself, is a joy forever.

Genius is initiative on fire.

Education begins by teaching children to read and ends by making most of them hate reading.

A large, still book is a piece of quietness, succulent and nourishing in a noisy world, which I approach and imbibe with "a sort of greedy enjoyment," as Marcel Proust said of those rooms of his old home whose air was "saturated with the bouquet of silence."