Quotes by Augustine Birrell

“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.”

“Libraries are not made; they grow. Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one.”

“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'.”

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

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

“That great dust-heap called ‘history’.”

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

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

“We do not get many glimpses of Bodley's habits of life or ways of thinking, but there is no difficulty in discerning a strenuous, determined, masterful figure, bent during his later years, perhaps ...”

“Great is bookishness and the charm of books.”

“Personally, I am dead against the burning of books.”

“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.”

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

“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.”