Augustine Birrell Quotes

12 Sourced Quotes

Friendship is a word, the very sight of which in print makes the heart warm.

Augustine Birrell
Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one.

Augustine Birrell
The man who has a library of his own collection is able to contemplate himself objectively, and is justified in believing in his own existence.

Augustine Birrell
There were no books in Eden, and there will be none in heaven;

Augustine Birrell
Personally, I am dead against the burning of books.

Augustine Birrell
On witnessing a man treat George Eliot in a rude manner:
I sat down in a corner and prayed to God to blast him. God did nothing, and ever since I have been an agnostic.

Augustine Birrell
A great library easily begets affection, which may deepen into love.

Augustine Birrell
It is pleasant to be admitted into the birth-chamber of a great idea destined to be translated into action.

Augustine Birrell
I am far too much in doubt about the present, far too perturbed.about the future, to be otherwise than profoundly reverential about the past.

Augustine Birrell
Oh, those scoundrelly Charity Commissioners! […] By the side of these anthropoid apes, the genuine bookworm, the paper-eating insect, ravenous as he once was, has done comparatively little mischief.

Augustine Birrell
There are no habits of man more alien to the doctrine of the Communist than those of the collector

Augustine Birrell
A poet's soul must contain the perfect shape of all things good, wise and just. His body must be spotless and without blemish, his life pure, his thoughts high, his studies intense.

Augustine Birrell