The most foolish kind of a book is a kind of leaky boat on the sea of wisdom; some of the wisdom will get in anyhow.

The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts.

Old books, you know well, are books of the world's youth, and new books are the fruits of its age.

It is faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth looking at.

To live is to function. That is all there is in living.

I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived.

Every man is an omnibus in which his ancestors ride.

Stillness and steadiness of features are signal marks of good breeding. Vulgar persons can't sit still, or at least must always work their limbs and features.

Every event that a man would master must be mounted on the run, and no man ever caught the reins of a thought except as it galloped past him.

The minute a phrase, becomes current, it becomes an apology for not thinking accurately to the end of the sentence.