Sermon (1899)
A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated (1894)
“A scholar is like a book written in a dead language — it is not every one that can read in it.”
"Common Places," No. 13, The Literary Examiner (September - December 1823)
“I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I'd written.”
“Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men”
2 Corinthians 3:1-16 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Corinthians+3&version=KJV;SBLGNT
Second Epistle to the Corinthians
Context: Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?
Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?
For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth. For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.
Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.
“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
“Only when a book is written out of passion is there much hope of its being read with passion.”
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
As quoted in Triumph of Survival : The Story of the Jews in the Modern Era 1650-1995 (1993) by Berel Wein, p. 96
