“Though public libraries have an imposing air, and doubtless contain invaluable volumes, yet, somehow, the books that prove most agreeable, grateful, and companionable, are those we pick up by chance here and there; those which seem put into our hands by Providence; those which pretend to little, but abound in much.”

“What amazes me is that most days feel useless. I don't seem to accomplish anything-just a few pages, most of which don't seem very good. Yet, when I put all those wasted days together, I somehow end up with a book of which I'm very proud.”

“The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.”

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

“Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack.”

“Value all books in proportion as they are agreeable to Scripture. Those that are nearest to it are the best, and those that are farthest from it, and most contrary to it, are the worst.”

“Pity is the most agreeable feeling among those who have little pride and no prospects of great conquests.”

“We sometimes had those little rubs which Providence sends to enhance the value of its favors.”

“Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost.”

“The human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination; and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow, though it cannot see how, similar to those few things by which it is surrounded.”