To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.

People do not read stupidities with impunity.

He loved books; books are cold but safe friends.

In the French language, there is a great gulf between prose and poetry; in English, there is hardly any difference. It is a splendid privilege of the great literary languages Greek, Latin, and French that they possess a prose. English has not this privilege. There is no prose in English.

The omnipotence of evil has never resulted in anything but fruitless efforts. Our thoughts always escape from whoever tries to smother them.

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age.