I am the state. [ Attributed to Louis XIV ]

I am fortune's fool. [ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet ]

I am declined
Into the vale of years. [ William Shakespeare ]

I am willing but unable. [ Motto ]

I am the last of my race.
My name ends with me. [ Schiller ]

I am not what I once was. [ Horace ]

Hold the Fort! I am coming. [ Gen. W. T. Sherman ]

I am the light of the world. [ Bible ]

I am a citizen of the world. [ Diogenes Laertius ]

Here I am, and here I remain. [ Marshall MacMahon in the trenches before the Malakoff ]

Fear not; for I am with thee. [ Bible ]

Think not I am what I appear. [ Byron ]

You who come my grave to view,
A moment stop and think.
That I am in eternity,
And you are on the brink. [ Epitaph ]

Thank God, I too am a painter ! [ Correggio ]

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began,
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die. [ Wordsworth ]

I am conscious of eternal life. [ Theodore Parker ]

What I am, I owe to my country. [ U. S. Grant ]

Days of absence, sad and dreary;
Clothed in sorrow's dark array,
Days of absence, I am weary;
She I love is far away. [ Rousseau ]

You take me up before I am down. [ Proverb ]

I am wrapped in dismal thinking. [ William Shakespeare ]

I am a man
More sinned against than sinning. [ King Lear ]

When I am dead, make me a caudle. [ Proverb ]

All that I am, my mother made me. [ J. Q. Adams ]

I am sure care's an enemy to life. [ William Shakespeare ]

Though I am young, I scorn to flit
On the wings of borrowed wit [ George Wither ]

Be as just and gracious unto me.
As I am confident and kind to thee. [ William Shakespeare ]

I am not in the roll of common men. [ William Shakespeare ]

Here am I a man, here may I be one. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at;
I am not what I am. [ William Shakespeare ]

He laughs, but I am not laughed at.

I am a part of all that I have met. [ Tennyson ]

I am not now That which I have been. [ Byron ]

For I am full of spirit, and resolved
To meet all perils very constantly. [ Jul. Caes ]

I am athirst for God, the living God. [ Jean Ingelow ]

I am just going to leap into the dark. [ Rabelais ]

Whither goest, grief? Where I am wont. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

I am not a Virginian, but an American. [ Patrick Henry ]

Though I am bitten, I am not all eaten. [ Proverb ]

Here quench your thirst, and mark in me
An emblem of true charity;
Who, while my bounty I bestow.
Am neither seen, nor heard to flow. [ Hone ]

I am as free as nature first made man.
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran. [ Dryden ]

I am a feather for each wind that blows. [ William Shakespeare ]

This is the last of earth! I am content. [ John Quincy Adams ]

I am as full as a jade, quoth the bride. [ Proverb ]

I am native here and to the manner born. [ William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Sc. 4 ]

I am a heavy stone,
Rolled up a hill by a weak child: I move
A little up, and tumble back again. [ W. Rider ]

I am misanthropos, and hate mankind,
For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog.
That I might love thee something. [ William Shakespeare ]

No longer mourn for me when I am dead.
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled. [ William Shakespeare ]

I am never merry when I hear sweet music. [ William Shakespeare ]

To rock and river, plain and wood,
I cry, Ye are my kin. While I, O Earth!
Am but an atom of thee, and a breath,
Passing unseen and unrecorded, like
The tiny throb here in my temple's pulse. [ Philip J. Bailey ]

I am giddy; expectation whirls me around.
The imaginary relish is so sweet
That it enchants my sense. [ William Shakespeare ]

I am what you will be, I was what you are.

I am not mad; I would to heaven I were!
For then, 'tis like I should forget myself:
O, if I could, what grief should I forget! [ William Shakespeare ]

Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks. [ William Shakespeare, Hamlet ]

Here I lie, and no wonder I am dead,
For the wheel of a wagon went over my head. [ Miscellaneous epitaph ]

Oh! I have pass'd a miserable night.
So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams.
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days. [ William Shakespeare ]

I am the very slave of circumstance
And impulse - borne away with every breath. [ Byron ]

If I only have will to be grateful, I am so. [ Seneca ]

Fate made me what I am, may make me nothing;
But either that or nothing must I be;
I will not live degraded. [ Byron ]

I am talking of hay, and you of horse beans. [ Proverb ]

You may my glories and my state depose,
But not my griefs; still am I king of those. [ William Shakespeare ]

But what am I? An infant crying in the night;
An infant crying for the light;
And with no language but a cry. [ Alfred Tennyson ]

'Tis something to be willing to commend;
But my best praise is, that I am your friend. [ Southerne ]

The rose saith in the dewy morn,
I am most fair; Yet all my loveliness is born
Upon a thorn. [ Christina G. Rossetti ]

Then know, that I have little wealth to lose;
A man I am cross'd with adversity. [ William Shakespeare ]

There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats;
For I am armed so strong in honesty
That they pass by me as the idle wind
Which I respect not. [ Jul. Caes ]

I am almost frightened out of my seven senses. [ Cervantes ]

Though the chameleon Love can feed on the air,
I am one that am nourished by my victuals. [ William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act II. Sc. 1 ]

Everywhere am I at home, everywhere am I known. [ F. Hückstädt ]

If I am a fool, put you your finger in my mouth. [ Proverb ]

If I have enough for myself and family,
I am steward only for myself; if I have more,
I am but a steward of that abundance for others. [ George Herbert ]

Rome is no longer in Rome; it is all where I am. [ Corn ]

Don't choose me because I am faithful,
Don't choose me because I am kind,
If your heart settles on me, I'm for the taking,
Take me for longing or leave me behind. [ Mark Simos, Take Me for Longing ]

The sunshine fails, the shadows grow more dreary.
And I am near to fall, infirm and weary. [ Longfellow ]

I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient. [ William Shakespeare ]

Sworn to no master, of no sect am I;
As drives the storm, at any door I knock,
And house with Montaigne now, and now with Locke. [ Pope ]

Madam, I am, to the utmost of my power, not yours. [ Proverb ]

I am a man, and I reckon nothing human alien to me. [ Ter ]

Though I am always in haste, I am never in a hurry. [ John Wesley ]

Not for fellowship in hatred, but in love am I here. [ Sophocles ]

Myself am hell; And in the lowest deep a lower deep,
Still threatening to devour me, opens wide;
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven. [ Milton ]

Her eye (I am very fond of handsome eyes).
Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire
Until she spoke, then through its soft disguise
Flashed an expression more of pride than ire,
And love than either; and there would arise,
A something in them which was not desire,
But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul,
Which struggled through and chastened down the whole. [ Byron ]

I am bound to find you in reasons, but not in brains. [ Johnson ]

Oh, that I were as happy as I am clear in conscience. [ Ovid ]

I am but a gatherer and disposer of other men's stuff. [ Sir Henry Wotton ]

Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. [ Jesus to His disciples ]

I was once a poet and a historian, and now I am nothing. [ Boudier, for his epitaph ]

I was for Ovid at fifteen, but I am for Horace at thirty. [ Ducerceau ]

What is my life if I am no longer to be of use to others? [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

I am a barbarian here, for no one understands what I say. [ Ovid ]

It is my own fault if I am deceived by the same man twice. [ Proverb ]

See me, how calm I am.
Ay, people are generally calm at the misfortunes of others. [ Goldsmith ]

I have been dying for twenty years, now I am going to live. [ Jas. Drummond Burns ]

Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks, but I thank you. [ William Shakespeare ]

I am equally an enemy to a female dunce and a female pedant. [ Goldsmith ]

I am satisfied there is more weakness among men than malice. [ H. W. Shaw ]

If fame is only to come after death, I am in no hurry for it. [ Martial ]

Spinner, spin quietly, so as not to disturb me; I am praying. [ Portuguese Proverb ]

Though I am a religious man, I am not therefore the less a man. [ Mol ]

Words are grown so false, I am loath to prove reason with them. [ William Shakespeare ]

I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. [ Bible ]

I am climbing a difficult road; but the glory gives me strength. [ Propertius ]

If I am not worth the wooing, I surely am not worth the winning. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]

For a dead one I am not at home; I am like the cat with the mouse. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Mephistopheles ]

I am sorry to see how small a piece of religion will make a cloak. [ Sir William Waller ]

You are an honest man, and I am your uncle, and that’s two lies. [ Proverb ]

And am I to suffer for it because I was born a man? Is pity a sin? [ Friedrich Schiller ]

I am myself a gentleman of the press, and have no other escutcheon. [ Beaconsfield ]

I am afraid to think what I have done; look on it again I dare not. [ William Shakespeare ]

I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit. [ Shakespeare ]

I am not only witty myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. [ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part II Act I Sc. 2 ]

I regret not death. I am going to meet my friends in another world. [ Ariosto ]

There are some things I am afraid of: I am afraid to do a mean thing. [ James A. Garfield ]

I am satisfied to trifle away my time, rather than let it stick by me. [ Pope ]

Only Zweifel (doubt) rhymes to Teufel (devil); here am I quite at home. [ The Sceptic in Faust. ]

When I am in danger of bursting, I will go and whisper among the reeds. [ Swift ]

I am sick of this bad world! The daylight and the sun grow painful to me. [ Addison ]

I am a great friend to public amusements; for they keep people from vice. [ Samuel Johnson ]

I am young, it is true; but in noble souls, valor does not wait for years. [ Corneille ]

I am a fool, I know it; and yet, God help me, I'm poor enough to be a wit. [ Congreve ]

I am suffocated and lost when I have not the bright feeling of progression. [ Margaret Fuller ]

I am not sorry that my son loses at play, but that he will seek his revenge. [ Proverb ]

The world knows the worst of me, and I can say that I am better than my fame. [ Schiller ]

There is something noble in hearing myself ill spoken of when I am doing well. [ Alexander the Great ]

No, no! I am but shadow of myself: You are deceived, my substance is not here. [ William Shakespeare ]

I am satisfied that we are less convinced by what we hear than by what we see. [ Herodotus ]

I am very anxious to please the public, particularly as it lives and lets live. [ Goethe ]

I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding. [ Samuel Johnson ]

I am always afraid of a fool. One cannot be sure that he is not a knave as well. [ Hazlitt ]

Sentimentally I am disposed to harmony, but organically I am incapable of a tune. [ Lamb ]

O Lucius, I am sick of this bad world! The day-light and the sun grow painful to me. [ Addison ]

I go at what I am about as if there was nothing else in the world for the time being. [ Charles Kingsley ]

When I lived, I provided for everything but death; now I must die, and am unprepared. [ Caesar Borgia ]

My cares and my inquiries are for decency and truth, and in this I am wholly occupied. [ Horace ]

I am no herald to inquire of men's pedigrees; it sufficeth me if I know their virtues. [ Sir P. Sidney ]

That which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in; and the best of me is diligence. [ William Shakespeare ]

How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart-burned an hour after. [ William Shakespeare ]

For my own part, I had rather be old only a short time than be old before I really am so. [ Cicero ]

I am little inclined to practice on others, and as little that they should practice on me. [ Sir W. Temple ]

When I am dead, may earth be mingled with fire! Ay, said Nero, and while I am living, too. [ From a Greek Tragedian ]

Respect my independence! Lisette alone has the right to smile when I say: I am independent! [ Beranger ]

I am always ill at ease when tumults arise among the mob - people who have nothing to lose. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

When I am reading a book, whether wise or silly, it seems to me to be alive and talking to me. [ Swift ]

I have been young, and am now old, and have not yet known an untruthful man to come to a good end. [ Berthold Auerbach ]

I am young; I have passed but the half of the road of life, and, already weary, I turn and look back! [ A. de Musset ]

I have myself to respect, but to myself I am not amiable; but my friend is my amiableness personified. [ Henry D. Thoreau ]

If I for my opinion bleed, opinion shall be surgeon to my hurt, and keep me on the side where still I am [ William Shakespeare ]

I think I am quite wicked with roses. I like to gather them, and smell them till they have no scent left. [ George Eliot ]

I am amazed how men can call her blind, when, by the company she keeps, she seems so very discriminating. [ Goldsmith ]

He is a fool who is not for love and beauty. I speak unto the young, for I am of them and always shall be. [ Bailey ]

Amongst so many borrowed things , I am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service. [ Montaigne ]

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. [ Jesus ]

I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others. [ Burke ]

The cancer of jealousy on the breast can never wholly be cut out, if I am to believe great masters of the healing art. [ Jean Paul ]

In love, it is only the commencement that charms. I am not surprised that one finds pleasure in frequently recommencing. [ Prince de Ligne ]

I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of Heaven. [ Johnson ]

I love to lose myself in other men's minds. When I am not walking, I am reading; I cannot sit and think. Books think for me. [ Charles Lamb ]

I am a man of peace. God knows how I love peace; but I hope I shall never be such a coward as to mistake oppression for peace. [ Kossuth ]

As I know more of mankind, I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly. [ Dr. Johnson ]

I am above being injured by fortune; though she snatch away much, more will remain to me. The blessings I now enjoy transcend fear. [ Ov ]

I am persuaded that he who is capable of being a bitter enemy can never possess the necessary virtues that constitute a true friend. [ Fitzosborne ]

I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which materialists have pestered the world ever convince me to the contrary. [ Sterne ]

Have I a religion, have I a country, have I a love, that I am ready to die for? are the first trial questions to itself of a true soul. [ John Ruskin ]

If my heart were as poor as my understanding, I should be happy; for I am thoroughly persuaded that such poverty is a means of salvation. [ Pascal ]

I think I am rather fond of silent people myself. I cannot bear to live with a person who feels compelled to talk because he is my companion. [ Disraeli ]

I am resolved to grow fat and look young till forty, and then slip out of the world with the first wrinkle and the reputation of five and twenty. [ Dryden ]

I am glad to think that I am not bound to make the world go right, but only to discover and to do, with cheerful heart, the work that God appoints. [ Jean Ingelow ]

I am tired of looking on what is, One might as well see beauty never more. As look upon it with an empty eye. I would this world were over. I am tired. [ Bailey ]

We gain nothing by being with such as ourselves. We encourage one another in mediocrity. I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself. [ Lamb ]

At the banquet of life, an unfortunate guest, I one day appeared; now, I am dying. Dying! and none there are to shed a tear over the tomb that awaits me! [ Gilbert ]

Properly speaking, we learn from those books only that we cannot judge. The author of a book that I am competent to criticise would have to learn from me. [ Goethe ]

I am not aware that payment, or even favors, however gracious, bind any man's soul and conscience in questions of highest morality and highest importance. [ Charles Kingsley ]

Leave a friend! So base I am not. I followed him in his prosperity, when the skies were clear and shining, and will not leave him when storms begin to rise. [ Metastasio ]

I am convinced that if the virtuosi could once find out a world in the moon, with a passage to it, our women would wear nothing but what directly came from thence. [ Swift ]

Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick, yet, with my nobler reason, against my fury do I take part; the rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance. [ William Shakespeare ]

I am told so many ill things of a man, and I see so few in him, that I begin to suspect he has a real but troublesome merit, as being likely to eclipse that of others. [ Bruyere ]

I am of opinion that there are no proverbial sayings which are not true, because they are all sentences drawn from experience itself, who is the mother of all sciences. [ Cervantes ]

I am beholden to calumny, that she hath so endeavored and taken pains to belie me. It shall make me set a surer guard on myself, and keep a better watch upon my actions. [ Ben Jonson ]

Many have puzzled themselves about the origin of evil. I am content to observe that there is evil, and that there is a way to escape from it; and with this I begin and end. [ John Newton ]

If I ever do a book on the Amazon, I hope I am able to bring a certain lightheartedness to the subject, in a way that tell the reader we are going to have fun with this thing. [ Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts ]

I long to believe in immortality. If I am destined to be happy with you here - how short is the longest life. I wish to believe in immortality - I wish to live with you forever. [ Keats ]

I am one who finds within me a nobility that spurns! the idle pratings of the great, and their mean boasts of what their fathers were, while they themselves are fools effeminate. [ Percival ]

Sometimes the beauty of the world is so overwhelming, I just want to throw back my head and gargle. Just gargle and gargle, and I don't care who hears me, because I am beautiful. [ Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts ]

Whenever I am in doubt about a sentence I read it aloud to see how it sounds, and indeed, always read the whole book through aloud, sometimes more than once, before it goes to the press. [ Ada Ellen Bayly, a.k.a. Edna Lyall, English novelist and early feminist, The Art Of Authorship, 1891 ]

It's a long stretch between that first birthday speech and this one. That was my cradle-song; and this is my swan-song, I suppose. I am used to swan-songs; I have sung them several times. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]

Perhaps, if I am very lucky, the feeble efforts of my lifetime will someday be noticed, and maybe, in some small way, they will be acknowledged as the greatest works of genius ever created by Man. [ Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts ]

I do not know what arguments mean in reference to any expression of a thought. I delight in telling what I think; but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of men. [ Emerson ]

Yes, what I am to be everlastingly, I am growing to be now - now in this Present time so little thought of, this time which the sun rises and sets in, and the clock strikes in, and I wake and sleep in. [ William Mountford ]

I am persuaded that music is designed to prepare for heaven, to educate for the choral enjoyment of Paradise, to form the mind to virtue and devotion, and to charm away evil and sanctify the heart to God. [ Legh Richmond ]

I love to lose myself in other men's minds. When I am not walking, I am reading. I cannot sit and think; books think for me. I have no repugnances. Shaftesbury is not too genteel for me, nor Jonathan Wild too low. [ Lamb ]

I am constitutionally susceptible of noises; a carpenter's hammer, in a warm summer noon, will fret me into more than midsummer madness; but those unconnected, unset sounds are nothing to the measured malice of music. [ C. Lamb ]

Very few people know how to enjoy life. Some say to themselves: I do this or that, therefore I am amused: I have paid so many pieces of gold, hence I feel so much pleasure; and they wear away their lives on that grindstone. [ A. de Musset ]

The widow who has been bereft of her children may seem in after years no whit less placid, no whit less serenely gladsome; nay, more gladsome than the woman whose blessings are still round her. I am amazed to see how wounds heal. [ Charles Buxton ]

When I meet with any persons who write obscurely or converse confusedly, I am apt to suspect two things; first, that such persons do not understand themselves; and secondly, that they are not worthy of being understood by others. [ Colton ]

Now, my young friends to whom I am addressing myself, with reference to this habit of reading, I make bold to tell you that it is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for His creatures. [ Anthony Trollope ]

It is not easy to surround life with any circumstances in which youth will not be delightful; and I am afraid that, whether married or unmarried, we shall find the vesture of terrestrial existence more heavy and cumbrous the longer it is worn. [ Steele ]

Without attempting a formal definition of the word, I am inclined to consider rhetoric, when reduced to a system in books, as a body of rules derived from experience and observation, extending to all communications by language, and designed to make it efficient. [ W. E. Channing ]

I am of opinion that there is nothing so beautiful but that there is something still more beautiful, of which this is the mere image and expression, - a something which can neither be perceived by the eyes, the ears, nor any of the senses; we comprehend it merely in the imagination. [ Cicero ]

Today I accidentally stepped on a snail on the sidewalk in front of our house. And I thought, I too am like that snail. I build a defensive wall around myself, a 'shell' if you will. But my shell isn't made out of a hard protective substance. Mine is made out of tinfoil and paper bags. [ Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts ]

First, girls, don't smoke--that is, don't smoke to excess. I am seventy-three and a half years old, and have been smoking seventy-three of them. But I never smoke to excess - that is, I smoke in moderation, only one cigar at a time. Second, don't drink - that is, don't drink to excess. Third, don't marry - I mean, to excess. [ Mark Twain, "Advice To Girls", 1909 ]

The king is but a man, as I am; the violet smells to him as it doth to me; the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions; his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. [ William Shakespeare ]

No man ever stood lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure there is greater anxiety to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience. I sometimes try my acquaintances by some such test as this - who could wear a patch, or two extra seams only, over the knee. [ Thoreau ]

It is the nature of man to be proud, when man by nature hath nothing to be proud of. He more adorneth the creature than he adoreth the Creator; and makes not only his belly his god, but his body. I am ashamed of their glory whose glory is their shame. If nature will needs have me to be proud of something, I will be proud only of this, that I am proud of nothing. [ Arthur Warwick ]

If I am allowed to give a metaphorical allusion to the future state of the blessed, I should imagine it by the orange-grove in that sheltered glen on which the sun is now beginning to shine, and of which the trees are, at the same time, loaded with sweet golden fruit and balmy silver flowers. Such objects may well portray a state in which hope and fruition become one eternal feeling. [ Sir H. Davy ]

Where are Shakespeare's imagination, Bacon's learning, Galileo's dream? Where is the sweet fancy of Sidney, the airy spirit of Fletcher, and Milton's thought severe? Methinks such things should not die and dissipate, when a hair can live for centuries, and a brick of Egypt will last three thousand years. I am content to believe that the mind of man survives, somehow or other, his clay. [ Barry Cornwall ]

There is a world of science necessary in choosing books. I have known some people in great sorrow fly to a novel, or the last light book in fashion. One might as well take a rose-draught for the plague! Light reading does not do when the heart is really heavy. I am told that Goethe, when he lost his son, took to study a science that was new to him. Ah! Goethe was a physician who knew what he was about. [ Edward Bulwer-Lytton ]

Your invitation honors me, and pleases me because you still keep me in your remembrance, but I am seventy; seventy, and would nestle in the chimney-corner, and smoke my pipe, and read my book, and take my rest, wishing you well in all affection; and that when you in your return shall arrive at pier No. 70 you may step aboard your waiting ship with a reconciled spirit, and lay your course toward the sinking sun with a contented heart. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]

Two things a master commits to his servant's care - the child and the child's clothes. It will be a poor excuse for the servant to say, at his master's return, Sir, here are all the child's clothes, neat and clean, but the child is lost. Much so of the account that many will give to God of their souls and bodies at the great day. Lord, here is my body; I am very grateful for it; I neglected nothing that belonged to its contents and welfare; but as for my soul, that is lost and cast away forever. I took little care and thought about it. [ John Flavel ]

I smoke in bed until I have to go to sleep; I wake up in the night, sometimes once, sometimes twice; sometimes three times, and I never waste any of these opportunities to smoke. This habit is so old and dear and precious to me that I would feel as you, sir, would feel if you should lose the only moral you've got - meaning the chairman - if you've got one: I am making no charges: I will grant, here, that I have stopped smoking now and then, for a few months at a time, but it was not on principle, it was only to show off; it was to pulverize those critics who said I was a slave to my habits and couldn't break my bonds. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. In the best books great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their soul into ours. God be thanked for books; they are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levellers; they give to all, who will faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our race. No matter how poor I am, I shall not pine for want of intellectual companionship, and I may become a cultivated man, though excluded from what is called the best society in the place where I live. [ W. E. Channing ]