Shakspeare. "A book! oh, rare one! be not, as in this fangled world, a garment nobler than it covers."
"My library was dukedom large enough."
Sidney, Sir Philip. "Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done."
Smiles, Sam. "Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they have for a book."
Smith, Alexander. "We read books not so much for what they say as for what they suggest."
Socrates. "Employ your time in improving yourselves by other men's documents; so shall you come easily by what others have labored hard to win."
Solomon. "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise."
Spencer, Herbert. "My reading has been much more in the direction of science than in the direction of general literature; and of such works in general literature as I have looked into, I know comparatively little, being an impatient reader, and usually soon satisfied."
Stanley, Henry M. "I carried [across Africa] a great many books,—three loads, or about one hundred and eighty pounds' weight; but as my men lessened in numbers,—stricken by famine, fighting, and sickness,—one by one they were reluctantly thrown away, until finally, when less than three hundred miles from the Atlantic, I possessed only the Bible, Shakspeare, Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, Norie's Navigation, and the Nautical Almanac for 1877. Poor Shakspeare was afterwards burned by demand of the foolish people of Zinga. At Bonea, Carlyle and Norie and the Nautical Almanac were pitched away, and I had only the old Bible left."
Swinburne, A. C. "It would be superfluous for any educated Englishman to say that he does not question the pre-eminence of such names as Bacon and Darwin."