It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive. Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in The Elder Brother. I have rather studied books than men. Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.
Books are the treasured wealth of the world, the fit inheritance of generations and nations.
Henry David Thoreau. The great and good do not die even in this world. Embalmed in books, their spirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an intellect to which one still listens.