Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.
Category Archive: January 30
Ambition has but one reward for all: A little power, a little transient fame; A grave to rest in, and a fading name!
We cannot be contented because we are happy, and we cannot be happy because we are contented.
To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.
It is good to know what a man is, and also what the world takes him for. But you do not understand him until you have learnt how he understands himself.
The writer’s object is – or should be – to hold the reader’s attention.
Reasonable orders are easy enough to obey; it is capricious, bureaucratic or plain idiotic demands that form the habit of discipline.
If the real radical finds that having long hair sets up psychological barriers to communication and organization, he cuts his hair. If I were organizing in an orthodox Jewish community, I would not walk in there eating a ham sandwich unless I wanted to be rejected so I could have an excuse to cop out.
The force of the blow depends on the resistance. It is sometimes better not to struggle against temptation. Either fly or yield at once.
There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.