O grant me a house by the beach of a bay,
Where the waves can be surly in winter, and play
With the sea-weed in summer, ye bountiful powers!
And I'd leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray,
For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.
Politicians use statistics in the same way that a drunk uses lamp-posts—for support rather than illumination.
Young men, especially in America, write to me and ask me to recommend a course of reading.” Distrust a course of reading! People who really care for books read all of them. There is no other course.
You can cover a great deal of country in books.