A learned man is a sedentary, concentrated solitary enthusiast, who searches through books to discover some particular grain of truth upon which he has set his heart. If the passion for reading conquers him, his gains dwindle and vanish between his fingers. A reader, on the other hand, must check the desire for learning at the outset; if knowledge sticks to him well and good, but to go in pursuit of it, to read on a system, to become a specialist or an authority, is very apt to kill what suits us to consider the more humane passion for pure and disinterested reading.

Nothing, however, can be more arrogant, though nothing is commoner than to assume that of Gods there is only one, and of religions none but the speaker’s.

For nothing was simply one thing.

For books continue each other, in spite of our habit of judging them separately.

My mind works in idleness. To do nothing is often my most profitable way.

But nothing is so strange when one is in love (and what was this except being in love?) as the complete indifference of other people.

Now, aged 50, I'm just poised to shoot forth quite free straight and undeflected my bolts whatever they are.