Bookish/history of Books

Famous quotes containing the words bookish, history and/or books:

    “Actually, if my business was legitimate, I would deduct a substantial percentage for depreciation of my body.
    Contemplative and bookish men must of necessitie be more quarrelsome than others, because they contend not about matter of fact, nor can determine their controversies by any certain witnesses, nor judges. But as long as they goe towards peace, that is Truth, it is no matter which way.”
    —John Donne (c. 1572–1631)

    “The basic idea which runs right through modern history and modern liberalism is that the public has got to be marginalized. The general public are viewed as no more than ignorant and meddlesome outsiders, a bewildered herd.”
    —Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)

    “My residence was more favorable, not only to thought, but to serious reading, than a university; and though I was beyond the range of the ordinary circulating library, I had more than ever come within the influence of those books which circulate round the world, whose sentences were first written on bark, and are now merely copied from time to time on to linen paper.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)