Dave

“There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest numbers of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest, who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.”
― John Ruskin, Unto This Last

“Sometimes he would advise me to read poetry, and would send me in his letters quantities of verses and whole poems, which he wrote from memory. 'Read poetry,' he wrote: 'poetry makes men better.' How often, in my later life, I realized the truth of this remark of his! Read poetry: it makes men better.”
― Peter Kropotkin, Memoirs of a Revolutionist

“I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero