The Love of Books |
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Almagest ancients Aristotle arts aspect of Mercury Athens Augustine Aulus Gellius become bestowed Bishop of Durham Boethius Carmentis Cassiodorus CHAPTER Christ Church clergy COMPLAINT OF BOOKS declared delight deserved desire Deut devote divine earth edition Exod faith fathers favour gift grammar Greek hand heart Heaven holy honour human infinite intellect John of Salisbury keepers King labours laity learning Liber light love of books lovers Luke master Matt means Mercury Moreover nature noble Ovid Oxford Pandects perished Phil Philobiblon philosophy Phronesis pious pleasure Pliny's Natural History poets poverty prayers preach princes PROLOGUE Prov Ptolemy reference Richard de Bury riches Robert Holkot Roger Bacon sacred says scholars Scripture secular soul spirit thee things Thomas thou tion treasure treatise truth verse vessels of wisdom virtue volumes Wherefore Wisdom viii wise word writing xvii τὸ
Popular passages
Page 10 - In books I find the dead as if they were alive; in books I foresee things to come; in books warlike affairs are set forth; from books come forth the laws of peace. All things are corrupted and decay in time; Saturn ceases not to devour the children that he generates; all the glory of the world would be buried in oblivion, unless God had provided mortals with the remedy of books. Alexander, the conqueror of the earth, Julius, the invader of Rome and of the world, who, the first in war and arts, assumed...
Page 109 - And it came to pass when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished ; that Moses commanded the Levites which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the LORD your GOD, that it may be there for a witness against thee.
Page 10 - In books I find the dead as if they were alive ; in books I foresee things to come ; in books warlike affairs are set forth ; from books come forth the laws of peace. All things are corrupted and decay in time ; Saturn ceases not to devour the children that he generates ; all the glory of the world would be buried irf oblivion, unless God had provided mortals with the remedy of books.
Page x - Upon the accession of his royal pupil to the throne, he was first appointed cofferer, then treasurer of the wardrobe, archdeacon of Northampton, prebendary of Lincoln, Sarum, and Lichfield, keeper of the privy seal, dean of Wales, and, last of all, bishop of Durham.
Page 55 - In fact, the fame of our love of them had been soon winged abroad everywhere, and we were reported to burn with such desire for books, and especially old ones, that it was more easy for any man to gain our favour by means of books than of money.
Page 58 - The great discoverer's pleasure at the university of Paris corresponds to that of visitors to Oxford in later years. " There," he says, "are delightful libraries, more aromatic than stores of spicery ; there are luxuriant parks of all manner of volumes ; there are Academic meads shaken by the tramp of scholars ; there are lounges of Athens ; walks of the Peripatetics ; peaks of Parnassus ; and porches of the Stoics. There is seen the surveyor of all Arts and Sciences, Aristotle, to whom belongs all...
Page 95 - ... the mirror of eternity. In books we climb mountains and scan the deepest gulfs of the abyss ; in books we behold the finny tribes that may not exist outside their native waters, distinguish the properties of streams and springs and of various lands; from books we dig out gems and metals and the materials of every kind of mineral, and learn the virtues of herbs and trees and plants, and survey at will the whole progeny of Neptune, Ceres, and Pluto.
Page 28 - Which of you enters the schools to teach or to dispute without relying upon our support ? First of all, it behoves you to eat the book with Ezechiel, that the belly of your memory may be sweetened within, and thus as with the panther refreshed, to whose breath all beasts and cattle long to approach, the sweet savour of the spices it has eaten may shed a perfume without.
Page 102 - Christ himself has written on his vesture and on his thigh King of Kings and Lord of Lords, so that without writing the royal ornaments of the 210 Omnipotent cannot be made perfect.
Page 6 - To this end, most acceptable in the sight of God, our attention has long been unweariedly devoted. This ecstatic love has carried us away so powerfully, that we have resigned all thoughts of other earthly things, and have given ourselves up to a passion for acquiring books.