Augustine Birrell Quotes

[Milton] calls the university "A stony-hearted step-mother."

Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one.

Libraries are not made, they grow.

There were no books in Eden, and there will be none in heaven

Friendship is a word, the very sight of which in print makes the heart warm.

Great is bookishness and the charm of books.

It is the Mass that matters.

A conventional good read is usually a bad read, a relaxing bath in what we know already. A true good read is surely an act of innovative creation in which we, the readers, become conspirators.

The man who has a library of his own collection is able to contemplate himself objectively, and is justified in believing in his own existence.

That great dust-heap called 'history'.

History is a pageant and not a philosophy.

It is the Mass the matters.

I am far too much in doubt about the present, far too perturbed .about the future, to be otherwise than profoundly reverential about the past.

Any 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.

A great library easily begets affection, which may deepen into love.

Poetry should be vital--either stirring our blood by its divine movements or snatching our breath by its divine perfection. To do both is supreme glory, to do either is enduring fame.

Few men can afford to be angry.

A poet's soul must contain the perfect shape of all things good, wise and just. His body must be spotless and without blemish, his life pure, his thoughts high, his studies intense.

Personally, I am dead against the burning of books.

There are no habits of man more alien to the doctrine of the Communist than those of the collector

It can never be wrong to give pleasure.

It is pleasant to be admitted into the birth-chamber of a great idea destined to be translated into action.

Is this true or only clever?

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

Friendship is a word the very sight of which in print makes the heart warm.