Before long, I had lost my youth and my patience for indulging others. Books were everything in life; books were better than wine.
'Till America has learned to love literature not as an amusement, not as a mere doggerel to memorize in a college room, but for its humanizing and ennobling energy, my dear reverend president, she wil...
These tears were difficult: they didn’t want to come out and they didn’t want to stay in.
The same thing as you, the same as she. The same as anyone who has ever been doubted or told to go away. To prove myself better.
Strangers talking over piles of books do not remain strangers for long.
Stevenson threw back his head and made a slow murmuring sound, If only I could secure a violent death.Pardon?What a fine success! Stevenson continued, spurring Jack into a canter as he lost himself in...
Beware the camel’s nose—for its whole body will soon follow.
Believe that when I am at once a man's friend I am always so-nor is it so very hard to bring me to it. And though a man may enjoy himself in being my enemy, he cannot make me HIS for longer than I wis...
'Pity without rigor would be cowardly egotism, mere sentimentality.'
You are always better off to read a book, anyway, than to meet the person behind it.
Teacher, tender comrade, wife,A fellow farer true through life,Heart whole and soul free,The August father gave to me.
Remember that only when past genius is transmitted into a present power shall we meet the first truly american poet. And somewhere, born to the streets rather than the athenaeum, we will come upon the...
Recall that when the first presses produced copies of the Bible, the scribes who had to spend years at a time on the same work, just as it had been done for centuries, streamed out from the monasterie...
In fact, the laboratory may be the greatest friend to dumb animals. As science advances, the lives of animals will improve as we depend less and less on their labor and no longer ignore their conditio...
Dante's Hell is part of our world as much as part of the underworld, and shouldn't be avoided, Lowell said, but rather confronted. We sound the depths of Hell very often in this life.
And luckily I have enough in my head to balance what is wanting in my back.
'Yes, we rather condemn people for eternity without the courtesy of informing them.'
The force of Dante's poetry resonated most in those who did not confess the Catholic faith, for believers would inevitably have quibbles with Dante's theology. But for those most distant theologically...
Survival here means simply an incomplete death, not a partial life -- to be trapped in a gap between the living and the dead. If I had a thousand tongues, I would not try to describe the agony!
Surprises, like misfortunes, seldom come alone.