If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

A scholar is a candle which the love and desire of all men will light.

We expect a great man to be a good reader.

Freedom is not the right to live as we please, but the right to find how we ought to live in order to fulfill our potential.

I suppose every old scholar has had the experience of reading something in a book which was significant to him, but which he could never find again. Sure he is that he read it there, but no one else ever read it, nor can he find it again, though he buy the book and ransack every page.

Every act of the man inscribes itself in the memories of his fellows, and in his own manners and face. The air is full of sounds;the sky, of tokens; the ground is all memoranda and signatures; and every object covered over with hints, which speak to the intelligent.

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.