The act of contemplation then creates the thing created.

He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.

Literature is an avenue to glory, ever open for those ingenious men who are deprived of honours or of wealth.

But, indeed, we prefer books to pounds; and we love manuscripts better than florins; and we prefer small pamphlets to war horses.

The defects of great men are the consolation of the dunces.

There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing.