Quote #6

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.

More from Augustine Birrell

  1. Personally, I am dead against the burning of books.
  2. There were no books in Eden, and there will be none in heaven;
  3. Great is bookishness and the charm of books.
  4. There are no habits of man more alien to the doctrine of the Communist than those of the collector
  5. Words are women, deeds are men
  6. It can never be wrong to give pleasure.
  7. It is pleasant to be admitted into the birth-chamber of a great idea destined to be translated into action.
  8. An ordinary man can...surround himself with two thousand books..and thenceforward have at least one place in the world in which it is possi…

All Augustine Birrell quotes