We Should Choose Our Books As We

That Writer Does The Most Who Gives His Reader The Most Knowledge And Takes From Him The Least Time.

None Are So Seldom Found Alone, And Are So Soon Tired Of Their Own Company, As Those Coxcombs Who Are On The Best Terms With Themselves.

Posthumous Fame Is A Plant Of Tardy Growth, For Our Body Must Be The Seed Of It; Or We May Liken It To A Torch, Which Nothing But The Last Spark Of Life Can Light Up; Or We May Compare It To The Trumpet Of The Archangel, For It Is Blown Over The Dead; But Unlike That Awful Blast, It Is Of Earth, Not Of Heaven, And Can Neither Rouse Nor Raise Us.

Those Who Worship Gold In A World So Corrupt As This We Live In Have At Least One Thing To Plead In Defense Of Their Idolatry--the Power Of Their Idol. It Is True That, Like Other Idols, It Can Neither Move, See, Hear, Feel, Nor Understand; But, Unlike Other Idols, It Has Often Communicated All These Powers To Those Who Had Them Not, And Annihilated Them In Those Who Had. This Idol Can Boast Of Two Peculiarities; It Is Worshipped In All Climates, Without A Single Temple, And By All Classes, Without A Single Hypocrite.

We Make A Goddess Of Fortune ... And Place Her In The Highest Heaven. But It Is Not Fortune That Is Exalted And Powerful, But We Ourselves That Are Abject And Weak.