Books are a triviality. Life alone is great.

The Orator persuades and carries all with him, he knows not how; the Rhetorician can prove that he ought to have persuaded and carried all with him.

No good book or good thing of any kind shows it best face at first. No the most common quality of in a true work of art that has excellence and depth, is that at first sight it produces a certain disappointment.

All that mankind has done, thought or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.

My books are friends that never fail me.

A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.

Show me the person you honor, for I know better by that the kind of person you are. For you show me what your idea of humanity is.