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.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- The author compares bureaucratic officials to animals and claims actual book lovers do less harm.
- In plain terms
- Charity Commissioners are worse than book lovers.
- What can you take from it?
- Officials can cause more harm than readers.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Are officials truly harmful?
- Do readers cause mischief?
Another view
It uses hyperbole and insults rather than evidence.
More from Augustine Birrell
Personally, I am dead against the burning of books.
Permalink to quote #5 There were no books in Eden, and there will be none in heaven;
Permalink to quote #7 Great is bookishness and the charm of books.
Permalink to quote #4
Related quotes
Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make.
Henry KissingerHenry Kissinger quote #37 I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we read…
Franz KafkaFranz Kafka quote #1 Does there, I wonder, exist a being who has read all, or approximately all, that the person of average culture is supposed to have read, and that not to have r…
Arnold BennettArnold Bennett quote #1