Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and puts down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.

There is not so poor a book in the world that would not be a prodigious effort were it wrought out entirely by a single mind, without the aid of prior investigators.

It is, perhaps, not considered through how many hands a book often passes, before it comes into those of the reader; or what part of the profit each hand must retain, as a motive for transmitting it to the next.

I am always for getting a boy forward in his learning; for that is a sure good. I would let him at first read any English book which happens to engage his attention: because you have done a great deal, when you have brought him to have entertainment from a book. He’ll get better books […]

By degrees one age improves upon another. Exactness is first obtained, and afterwards elegance. But diction, merely vocal, is always in its childhood. As no man leaves his eloquence behind him, the new generations have all to learn. There may possibly be books without a polished language, but there can be no polished language without […]

Books without the knowledge of life are useless; for what should books teach but the art of living?

Alas, Madam! How few books are there of which one can ever possibly arrive at the “last” page

The book which is read most, is read by few, compared with those that read it not; and of those few, the greater part peruse it with dispositions that very little favour their own improvement.