"Self-reliance is a grand element of character," says Michael Reynolds. "It has won Olympic crowns and Isthmian laurels; it confers kinship with men who have vindicated their divine right to be held in the world's memory."
CHAPTER XXIV.
BOOKS AND SUCCESS.
Ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.
—Shakespeare.
Prefer knowledge to wealth; for the one is transitory, the other perpetual. —Socrates.
If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. —Franklin.
My early and invincible love of reading, I would not exchange for the treasures of India. —Gibbon.
If the crowns of all the kingdoms of the empire were laid down at my feet in exchange for my books and my love of reading, I would spurn them all. —Fénelon.
Who of us can tell
What he had been, had Cadmus never taught
The art that fixes into form the thought,—
Had Plato never spoken from his cell,
Or his high harp blind Homer never strung?
—Bulwer.