Have you ever rightly considered what the mere ability to read means? That it is the key which admits us to the whole world of thought and fancy and imagination? to the company of saint and sage, of the wisest and the wittiest at their wisest and wittiest moment? That it enables us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest ears, and listen to the sweetest voices of all time? More than that, it annihilates time and space for us.

Beauty hath no true glass, except it be in the sweet privacy of loving eyes.

The wisest man could ask no more of fate Than to be simple, modest, manly, true, Safe from the many, honored by the few; Nothing to court in Church, or World, or State, But inwardly in secret to be great.

He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing.

Granting our wish is one of Fate's saddest jokes.

Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past.

It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reading is...