When St. Thomas Aquinas was asked in what manner a man might best become learned, he answered, 'By reading one book.' The homo unius libri is indeed proverbially formidable to all conversational figurantes.—R. Southey. The Doctor.
THE SCRIPTURES: WHAT ARE THEY?
I remember he alleged many a scripture, but those I valued not; the scriptures, thought I, what are they? A dead letter, a little ink and paper, of three or four shillings price. Alas! What is the scripture? Give me a ballad, a news-book, George on horseback, or Bevis of Southampton; give me some book that teaches curious arts, that tells of old fables; but for the holy scriptures I cared not.—J. Bunyan. Sighs from Hell.
'THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS'
I know of no book, the Bible excepted, as above all comparison, which I, according to my judgement and experience, could so safely recommend as teaching and enforcing the whole saving truth according to the mind that was in Christ Jesus, as the Pilgrim's Progress. It is, in my conviction, incomparably the best summa theologiae evangelicae ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired.
This wonderful work is one of the few books which may be read repeatedly at different times, and each time with a new and different pleasure. I read it once as a theologian—and let me assure you that there is great theological acumen in the work—once with devotional feelings—and once as a poet. I could not have believed beforehand that Calvinism could be painted in such exquisitely delightful colours....
The Pilgrim's Progress is composed in the lowest style of English, without slang or false grammar. If you were to polish it, you would at once destroy the reality of the vision. For works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain.—S. T. Coleridge. Table Talk.
NO BOOK LIKE THE BIBLE
I would have you every morning read a portion of the Holy Scriptures, till you have read the Bible from the beginning to the end: observe it well, read it reverently and attentively, set your heart upon it, and lay it up in your memory and make it the direction of your life: it will make you a wise and a good man. I have been acquainted somewhat with men and books, and have had long experience in learning, and in the world: there is no book like the Bible for excellent learning, wisdom, and use; and it is want of understanding in them that think or speak otherwise.—Sir M. Hale. A Letter to one of his Sons, after his recovery from the Smallpox.