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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 In the Name of the Bodleian, and Other Essays (1905)

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Source: "Bookworms"
Work: In the Name of the Bodleian, and Other Essays, 1905
Source quality: Source identified Names the work or year, but without an exact location.

More by Augustine Birrell

As certain as the Correggiosity of Correggio.

There were no books in Eden, and there will be none in heaven.

In the Name of the Bodleian, and Other Essays (1905)

That great dust-heap called ‘history’.

It can never be wrong to give pleasure.

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History is a pageant, not a philosophy.

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One whom it is easier to hate, but still easier to quote—Alexander Pope.

Alexander Pope; in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)

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

In the Name of the Bodleian, and Other Essays (1905)

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

In the Name of the Bodleian, and Other Essays (1905)

Personally, I am dead against the burning of books.

In the Name of the Bodleian, and Other Essays (1905)

Great is bookishness and the charm of books.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Augustine Birrell (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.