The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them. – Samuel Butler
Birth and death are so closely related that one could not destroy either without destroying the other at the same time. It is extinction that makes creation possible. – Samuel Butler
Letters are like wine; if they are sound they ripen with keeping. A man should lay down letters as he does a cellar of wine. – Samuel Butler
Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism. – Samuel Butler
Catalogues of imaginary libraries are an obscure but fruitful area of collecting. The tradition of imaginary books, which exist only within other books, goes back at least to Rabelais, who invented a list of book titles for the Abbey of Saint-Victor in Gargantua and Pantagruel (c.1532). – Emi Hastings, “Catalogues of Imaginary Libraries,” 2014