John Milton on Books
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“Deep vers'd in books, and shallow in himself.”
“A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.”
“As good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye.”
“Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.”