We, as we read, must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner; must fasten these images to some reality in our secret experience, or we shall learn nothing rightly.

Our high respect for a well-read man is praise enough for literature. - Ralph Waldo Emerson,

I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven. I should as soon think of swimming across the Charles river when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books in originals, when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue.

If we encountered a man or rare intellect, we should ask him what books he read. - Ralph Waldo Emerson,

I pay the schoolmaster but 'tis the schoolboys who educate my son.

When a man is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something