What is the use of books and libraries innumerable, if scarce in a lifetime the master reads the titles? A student is burdened by a crowd of authors, not instructed; and it is far better to devote yourself to a few, than to lose your way among a multitude.

I beseech you, my friend, when you are reading my book to keep your hands behind its back, for fear you should do mischief to the text by some sudden movement; for a man who knows nothing about writing thinks that it is no concern of his. Whereas to a writer the last line is as sweet as port is to a sailor. Three fingers hold the pen, but the whole body toils.

Those who governed these primitive monasteries soon realised the fact that without books their inmates would relapse into barbarism, and libraries were got together.

Every Book of the House, now given, or hereafter to be given, shall have a high value set upon it when it is borrowed, in order that he that has it may be more fearful lest he lose it;.

Procure then as many books as will suffice for use; but not a single one for show.

No picture of a medieval library can be complete unless it be remembered that in many cases beauty was no less an object than utility. The bookcases were fine specimens of carpentry-work, carved and decorated; the pavement was of encaustic tiles worked in patterns; the walls were decorated with plaster-work in relief; the windows were filled with stained glass; and the roof-timbers were ornamented with the coat-armour of benefactors.

Every place of retirement requires a Walk. My Thoughts sleep if I sit still; my Fancy does not go by itself, as when my Legs move it: and all those who study without a Book are in the same Condition.

A library may be described as a gigantic mincing-machine into which the labours of the past are flung, to be turned out again in a slightly altered form as the literature of the present.