If ever Shakespeare rants, it is not when his imagination is hurrying him along, but when he is hurrying his imagination along.

Western literature has been more influenced by the Bible than any other book.

A few more years will destroy whatever yet remains of that magical potency which once belonged to the name of Byron.

Books are becoming everything to me. If I had at this moment any choice in life, I would bury myself in one of those immense libraries...and never pass a waking hour without a book before me.

Queen Mary had a way of interrupting tattle about elopements, duels, and play debts, by asking the tattlers, very quietly yet significantly, whether they had ever read her favorite sermon--Dr. Tillotson on Evil Speaking.

The best portraits are perhaps those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature; and we are not certain that the best histories are not those in which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy; but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected; but the great characteristic features are imprinted on the mind forever.

Temple was a man of the world amongst men of letters, a man of letters amongst men of the world.