The princeps copy, clad in blue and gold.
Now cheaply bought, for thrice their weight in gold.
How pure the joy when first my hands unfold
The small, rare volume, black with tarnished gold.
Learning hath gained most by those books by which the Printers have lost.
Some Books are onely cursorily to be tasted of.
Books are necessary to correct the vices of the polite; but those vices are ever changing, and the antidote should be changed accordingly—should still be new.
In proportion as society refines, new books
must ever become more necessary.
| author = Goldsmith
| work = Citizen of the World. Letter
LXXII.
I armed her against the censures of the world;
showed her that books were sweet unreproaching companions to the miserable, and that if
they could not bring us to enjoy life, they
would at least teach us to endure it.
| author = Goldsmith
| work = Vicar of Wakefield. Ch. XXII.
I have ever gained the most profit, and the
most pleasure also, from the books which have
made me think the most: and, when the difficulties have once been overcome, these are the
books which have struck the deepest root, not
only in my memory and understanding, but likewise in my affections.
J. C. and A. W. Hare—Guesses at Truth.
P. 458.
Thou art a plant sprung up to wither never,
But, like a laurell, to grow green forever.
The foolishest book is a kind of leaky boat on
a sea of wisdom; some of the wisdom will get in
anyhow.
Holmes—The Poet at the Breakfast-Table. XI.
Dear little child, this little book
Is less a primer than a key
To sunder gates where wonder waits
Your "Open Sesame! "
Rupert Hughes—With a First Reader.
Medicine for the soul.
Inscription over the door of the Library at
Thebes. Diodorus Sicuhis. I. 49. 3.
Now go, write it before them in a table, and
note it in a book.
Isaiah. XXX. 8.
| author =
| work =
| place =
| note =
| topic = Books
| page =
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num = 15
| text = Oh that my words were now written! oh that
they were printed in a book!
Job. XLX. 23.
that mine adversary had
My desire is . .
written a book.
Job. XXXI. 35.
A man will turn over half a library to make
one book.
| author = Samuel Johnson
| work = Boswell's Life of Johnson.
(1775)
| topic = Books
| page =
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>Blest be the hour wherein I bought this book;
His studies happy that composed the book,
And the man fortunate that sold the book.
Ben Jonson—Every man out of his Humour.
Act I. Sc. 1.
Pray thee, take care, that tak'st my book in
hand,
To read it well; that is to understand.
Ben Jonson—Epigram 1.
When I would know thee * * * my thought
looks
Upon thy well-made choice of friends and books;
Then do I love thee, and behold thy ends
In making thy friends books, and thy books
friends.
Ben Jonson—Epigram 86.
Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira,
voluptas, gaudia, discursus, nostri est farrago
libelli.
The doings of men, their prayers, fear,
wrath, pleasure, delights, and recreations, are
the subject of this book.
Juvenal—Satires. I. I. 85.
In omnibus requiem qusesivi
Et non inveni
Nisiseorsim sedans
In angulo cum libello.
Everywhere I have sought rest and found it not except sitting apart in a nook with a little book.
Written in an autograph copy of Thomas a. Kempis's De Imitatione, according to Cornelius A. Lapide (Cornelius van den Steen), a Flemish Jesuit of the 17th century, who says he saw this inscription. At Zwoll is a picture of a Kempis with this inscription, the last clause being "in angello cum libello"—in a little nook with a little book. In angellis et libellis—in little nooks (cells) and little books. Given in King—Classical Quotations as being taken from the preface of De Imitatione.
<poem>Every age hath its book.
Koran. Ch. XIH
