We should have a glorious conflagration if all who cannot put fire into their works would only consent to put their works into the fire.—­Colton.

                            Books, dear books,

Have been, and are my comforts; morn and night,
Adversity, prosperity, at home,
Abroad, health, sickness—­good or ill report,
The same firm friends; the same refreshment rich,
And source of consolation. 

                                    —­Dr. Dodd.

When a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and courageous feelings, seek for no other rule to judge the work by; it is good, and made by a good workman.—­La Bruyere.

Books are a guide in youth, and an entertainment for age.  They support us under solitude, and keep us from becoming a burden to ourselves.  They help us to forget the crossness of men and things, compose our cares and our passions, and lay our disappointments asleep.  When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride or design in their conversation.—­Jeremy Collier.

He that studies books alone, will know how things ought to be; and he that studies men will know how things are.—­Colton.

It is with books as with men:  a very small number play a great part; the rest are confounded with the multitude.—­Voltaire.

Good books are to the young mind what the warming sun and the refreshing rain of spring are to the seeds which have lain dormant in the frosts of winter.  They are more, for they may save from that which is worse than death, as well as bless with that which is better than life.—­Horace Mann.

The books which help you most are those which make you think the most.  The hardest way of learning is by easy reading:  but a great book that comes from a great thinker—­it is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and with beauty.—­Theodore Parker.

Books, like friends, should be few, and well chosen.

Thou mayst as well expect to grow stronger by always eating as wiser by always reading.  Too much overcharges nature, and turns more into disease than nourishment.  ’Tis thought and digestion which makes books serviceable, and gives health and vigor to the mind.—­Fuller.

Brevity.—­Brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes.—­Shakespeare.

Brevity in writing is what charity is to all other virtues—­righteousness is nothing without the one, nor authorship without the other.—­Sydney Smith.

If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams—­the more they are condensed the deeper they burn.—­Southey.

The more an idea is developed the more concise becomes its expression; the more a tree is pruned, the better is the fruit.—­Alfred BOUGEANT.