MATTHEW GREEN, 1696-1737. And shorten tedious hours with books. HENRY FIELDING, 1707-1754. We are as liable to be corrupted by books as by companions. SAMUEL JOHNSON, 1709-1784. A young man should read five hours in the day, and so may acquire a great deal of knowledge. General principles must be had from books. In conversation you never get a system. Books that can be held in the hand, and carried to the fireside, are the best after all. Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. When we inquire into any subject, the first thing we have to do, is to know what books have treated of it. DAVID HUME, 1712-1776. I passed through the ordinary course of education with success, and was seized very early with a passion for literature, which has been the ruling passion of my life, and the great source of my enjoyments. OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 1728-1774. The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend; when I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting with an old one. WILLIAM DODD, 1729-1777. Books, dear books, Have been, and are my comforts, morn and night, Abroad, health, sickness-good or ill report, The same firm friends; the same refreshments rich, And source of consolation. JOHN MOORE, 1730-1802. The entertainment which вOOKS afford, can be enenjoyed in the worst weather, can be varied as we please, obtained in solitude, and instead of blunting, it sharpens the understanding; but the most valuable effect of a taste for reading is, that it often preserves us from bad company. For those are not apt to go or remain with disagreeable people abroad, who are always certain of a pleasant party at home. EDWARD GIBBON, 1737-1794. The love of study, a passion which derives great vigor from enjoyment, supplies each day, each hour, with a perpetual round of independent and rational pleasure. Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to what our studies may point. The use of reading is to aid us in thinking. DANIEL WYTTENBACH, 1746-1820. There is no business, no avocation whatever, which will not permit a man, who has the inclination, to give a little time, every day, to study. JOHN AIKIN, 1747-1822. Imagine that we had it in our power to call up the shades of the greatest and wisest men that ever existed, and oblige them to converse with us on the most interesting topics-what an inestimable privilege should we think it !—how superior to all common enjoyments! But in a well-furnished library we, in fact, possess this power. We can question Xenophon and Cæsar on their campaigns, make Demosthenes and Cicero plead before us, join in the audiences of Socrates and Plato, and receive demonstrations from Euclid and Newton. In books we have the choicest thoughts of the ablest men in their best dress. We can at pleasure exclude dulness and impertinence, and open our doors to wit and good sense alone. JOHN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE, 1749-1832. Whoever would do good in the world, ought not to deal in censure. We ought not to destroy, but rather construct. Every week he (Schiller) was different and more. perfect; whenever I saw him he appeared to me to have advanced in reading, learning, and judgment. TOMAS DE YRIARTE, 1750-1791. For every man of real learning And feels, in fact, a greater yearning, GEORGE CRABBE, 1754-1832. This, Books can do ;-nor this alone; they give They soothe the grieved, the stubborn they chastise, GEORGE DYER, 1755-1844. Libraries are the wardrobes of literature, whence men, properly informed, might bring forth something for ornament, much for curiosity, and more for use. WILLIAM GODWIN, 1756-1836. Books are the depository of everything that is most honorable to man. Literature, taken in all its bearings, forms the grand line of demarcation between the human and the animal kingdoms. He that loves reading, has everything within his reach. He that revels in a well-chosen library, has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavor. His taste is rendered so acute, as easily to distinguish the nicest shades of difference. His mind becomes ductile, susceptible to every impression, and gaining new refinement from them all. SIR S. EGERTON BRYDGES, 1762-1837. Books instruct us calmly, and without intermingling with their instruction any of those painful impressions of superiority, which we must necessarily feel from a living instructor. They wait the pace of each man's capacity; stay for his want of perception, without re proach; go backward and forward with him at his wish; and furnish inexhaustible repetitions. When a man sits in a well-furnished library, surrounded by the collected wisdom of thousands of the best endowed minds, of various ages and countries, what an amazing extent of mental range does he command. Every age, and every language, has some advantages; some excellencies peculiar to itself! Above all, there is this ' value in books, that they enable us to converse with the dead. When a person's body is mouldering, cold and insensible, in the grave, we feel a sacred sentiment of veneration for the living memorials of his mind. JEAN PAUL F. RICHTER, 1763–1825. A scholar has no ennui. In this bridal-chamber of the mind (such are our study-chambers), in this concert-hall of the finest voices gathered from all times and places-the aesthetic and philosophic enjoyments almost overpower the faculty of choice. ISAAC DISRAELI, 1767-1848. A virtuous writer communicates virtue; a refined writer, a subtile delicacy; a sublime writer, an elevation of sentiment. What acute reasoners has the refined penetration of Hume formed; what amenity of manners has not Addison introduced; to how many virtuous youths have not the moral essays of Johnson imparted fortitude, and illumined with reflection ? PHILOSOPHY extends its thoughts on whatever the eye has seen, or the hand has touched; it herbalizes in fields; it founds mines; it is on the waters, and in the forests; it is in the library, and the laboratory; it |