Morris, William. "The greater part of the Latins I should call sham classics. I suppose that they have some good literary qualities; but I cannot help thinking that it is difficult to find out how much. I suspect superstition and authority have influenced our estimate of them till it has become a mere matter of convention. Of modern fiction, I should like to say here that I yield to no one, not even Ruskin, in my love and admiration for Scott; also that, to my mind, of the novelists of our generation, Dickens is immeasurably ahead."
Müller, Max. "I know few books, if any, which I should call good from beginning to end. Take the greatest poet of antiquity, and if I am to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I must say that there are long passages, even in Homer, which seem to me extremely tedious."
Parker, Theodore. "What a joy is there in a good book, writ by some great master of thought, who breaks into beauty, as in summer the meadow into grass and dandelions and violets, with geraniums and manifold sweetness.... The books which help you most are those which make you think most.... A great book ... is a ship of thought deep freighted with thought, with beauty too. It sails the ocean, driven by the winds of heaven, breaking the level sea of life into beauty where it goes, leaving behind it a train of sparkling loveliness, widening as the ship goes on. And what treasures it brings to every land, scattering the seeds of truth, justice, love, and piety, to bless the world in ages yet to come."
Peacham, Henry. "To desire to have many books and never to use them, is like a child that will have a candle burning by him all the while he is sleeping."
Petrarch. "I have friends whose society is extremely agreeable to me; they are of all ages and of every country. They have distinguished themselves both in the cabinet and in the field, and obtained high honors for their knowledge of the sciences. It is easy to gain access to them, for they are always at my service; and I admit them to my company and dismiss them from it whenever I please. They are never troublesome, but immediately answer every question I ask them. Some relate to me the events of past ages, while others reveal to me the secrets of Nature. Some teach me how to live, and others how to die. Some, by their vivacity, drive away my cares and exhilarate my spirits; while others give fortitude to my mind, and teach me the important lesson how to restrain my desires and to depend wholly on myself. They open to me, in short, the various avenues of all the arts and sciences, and upon their information I safely rely in all emergencies."
Phelps, E. J. (United States Minister to the Court of St. James). "I cannot think the finis et fructus of liberal reading is reached by him who has not obtained in the best writings of our English tongue the generous acquaintance that ripens into affection. If he must stint himself, let him save elsewhere."
Plato. "Books are the immortal sons deifying their sires."
Plutarch. "We ought to regard books as we do sweetmeats,—not wholly to aim at the pleasantest, but chiefly to respect the wholesomest."
Potter, Dr. "It is nearly an axiom that people will not be better than the books they read."
Raleigh, Walter. "We may gather out of history a policy no less wise than eternal, by the comparison and application of other men's fore-passed miseries with our own like errors and ill-deservings."