The book which you read from a sense of duty, or because for any reason you must, does not commonly make friends with you.

It's a curious thing, this thing we call civilization...we think it is an affair of epochs, and nations. It's really an affair of individuals. One brother will be civilized and the other a barbarian...All civilization comes through literature now, especially in our country. A Greek got his civilization by talking and looking, and in some measure a Parisian may still do it. But we, who live remote from history and monuments, we must read or we must barbarise.

How is it the great pieces of good luck fall to us?

The mortality of all inanimate things is terrible to me, but that of books most of all.

The disposition to give a cup of cold water to a disciple is a far nobler property than the finest intellect. Satan has a fine intellect, but not the image of God.

The secret of the man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested.

It is the still, small voice that the soul heeds, not the deafening blasts of doom.