"Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind."
"Have you ever rightly considered what the mere ability to read means? That it is the key which admits us to the whole world of thought and fancy and imagination? to the company of saint and sage, of the wisest and the wittiest at their wisest and wittiest moment? That it enables us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest ears, and listen to the sweetest voices of all time? More than that, it annihilates time and space for us."
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Source: James Russell Lowell (1887). “Democracy and other Addresses”
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"Fate loves the fearless."
"The devil loves nothing better than the intolerance of reformers."
"What visionary tints the year puts on, When falling leaves falter through motionless air Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone! How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare, As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills The bowl between me and those distant hills, And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous hair!"
"All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action."
"One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning."