Augustine Birrell

In the Name of the Bodleian, and Other Essays

• A great library easily begets affection, which may deepen into love.
  • "In the Name of the Bodleian"

• It is pleasant to be admitted into the birth-chamber of a great idea destined to be translated into action.
  • "In the Name of the Bodleian"

• Words are women, deeds are men.
  • "In the Name of the Bodleian"

• Great is bookishness and the charm of books.
  • "Bookworms"

• Personally, I am dead against the burning of books.
  • "Bookworms"

• Oh, those scoundrelly Charity Commissioners! […] By the side of these anthropoid apes, the genuine bookworm, the paper-eating insect, ravenous as he once was, has done comparatively little mischief.
  • "Bookworms"

• There were no books in Eden, and there will be none in heaven;
  • "Gossip in a Library"

• There are no habits of man more alien to the doctrine of the Communist than those of the collector
  • "Gossip in a Library"

• It can never be wrong to give pleasure.
  • "Gossip in a Library"

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• An ordinary man can...surround himself with two thousand books..and thenceforward have at least one place in the world in which it is possible to be happy.