Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Books
In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours. God be thanked for books! They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levellers. They give to all who will faithfully use them the society, the spiritual prescience, of the best and greatest of our race.
William E. Channing.—Books.
Books are the negative pictures of thought, and the more sensitive the mind that receives their images, the more nicely the finest lines are reproduced.
Holmes.—The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, Chap. XI.
Old books, as you well know, are books of the world’s youth, and new books are fruits of its age.
Holmes.—The Professor of the Breakfast Table, Chap. IX.
When all that is worldly turns to dross around us, these only remain their steady value. When friends grow cold, and the converse of intimates languishes into vapid civility and commonplace, these only continue the unaltered countenance of happier days, and cheer us with that true friendship which never deceived hope, nor deserted sorrow.
Washington Irving.—The Sketch-Book: Roscoe.
Books are sepulchres of thought.
Longfellow.—The Wind over the Chimney, Stanza 8.
The pleasant books, that silently among
Our household treasures take familiar places,
And are to us as if a living tongue
Spake from the printed leaves or pictured faces.
Longfellow.—The Seaside and the Fireside, Dedication, St. VI.