Libraries are as the shrine where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.

Libraries are as the shrines where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.

That place that does contain My books, the best companions, is to me A glorious court, where hourly I converse With the old sages and philosophers; And sometimes, for variety, I confer With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels; Calling their victories, if unjustly got, Unto a strict account, and, in my fancy, Deface their ill-placed statues.

Impressions are relics till waken by incentives.

Let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.

There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self.