"I love books, by the way, way more than movies. Movies tell you what to think. A good book lets you choose a few thoughts for yourself. Movies show you the pink house. A good book tells you there’s a pink house and lets you paint some of the finishing touches, maybe choose the roof style, park your own car out front. My imagination has always topped anything a movie could come up with."
— Karen Marie Moning (via girlthatreads)
"When we are Pope, we intend to make great changes in the Creeds and Articles. Stealing books, i.e. borrowing them, shall be put among the mortal sins, and private revenge upon stealers of books shall be venial, under a very slight tariff.
Then, when we are Emperor, we intend, every year, to require each man in the empire who can read and write, to make solemn search of his household, and to file an affidavit that there is not remaining with him a borrowed book!"
—
Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), “Book-Keeping,” in Eyes and Ears (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1862), pp. 396-399 (at 398-399)
![distortus:
The Codex Gigas was once considered the eighth wonder of the world; the book is three feet long and weighs a hundred and sixty-five pounds. It has 600 pages which, contrary to legend, are made from calf skins, not donkey skins.
The Codex Gigas includes a combination of texts found nowhere else. In addition to the full text of the Latin bible, the book contains herbals, history books, cures for dangerous illnesses, texts caring for the soul, medical formulas for treating illnesses and diseases, conjurations, and even solutions to problems such as finding a thief.
The book got the nickname of The Devil’s Bible because it is the only bible to include such a large portrait of the devil. Half-clothed in royal ermine; half man, half beast; with claws, cloven hooves, and a huge serpentine red tongue, the drawing shows Satan walled up in a cell alone rather than loosed in Hell. Immediately across from the devil is a portrait of the Kingdom of Heaven, creating an interesting contrast [see here].
According to the Kungl Biblioteket, legend had it that the book was written by a monk condemned to be walled up alive. To spare his life, he promised his bishop that he would create the most wonderful book the world had ever seen, including the text of the Bible and the sum of all human knowledge up to that point in time – and he would do it in one night.
In order to accomplish this impossible task, he sold his soul to the devil. The legend is actually based on a misinterpretation of the word “inclusus” as the punishment of being walled up alive, but which actually refers to a monk choosing to live in a solitary cell away from the others.
Despite the legend involving the devil, in the time of the inquisition, this codex was kept by the monastery and studied by many scholars to this day.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mahy9jpDbS1rprz3po1_500.jpg)
The Codex Gigas was once considered the eighth wonder of the world; the book is three feet long and weighs a hundred and sixty-five pounds. It has 600 pages which, contrary to legend, are made from calf skins, not donkey skins.
The Codex Gigas includes a combination of texts found nowhere else. In addition to the full text of the Latin bible, the book contains herbals, history books, cures for dangerous illnesses, texts caring for the soul, medical formulas for treating illnesses and diseases, conjurations, and even solutions to problems such as finding a thief.
The book got the nickname of The Devil’s Bible because it is the only bible to include such a large portrait of the devil. Half-clothed in royal ermine; half man, half beast; with claws, cloven hooves, and a huge serpentine red tongue, the drawing shows Satan walled up in a cell alone rather than loosed in Hell. Immediately across from the devil is a portrait of the Kingdom of Heaven, creating an interesting contrast [see here].
According to the Kungl Biblioteket, legend had it that the book was written by a monk condemned to be walled up alive. To spare his life, he promised his bishop that he would create the most wonderful book the world had ever seen, including the text of the Bible and the sum of all human knowledge up to that point in time – and he would do it in one night.
In order to accomplish this impossible task, he sold his soul to the devil. The legend is actually based on a misinterpretation of the word “inclusus” as the punishment of being walled up alive, but which actually refers to a monk choosing to live in a solitary cell away from the others.
Despite the legend involving the devil, in the time of the inquisition, this codex was kept by the monastery and studied by many scholars to this day.
(via propagandery)
‘In March read the books you’ve always meant to read’
March 25, 1941, WPA Art Project Chicago (HT Brainpickings)
"How many hours, among the happiest of my life, have I spent in the dusty, damp or dismal purlieus of second-hand bookshops, where mummified silverfish, faded pressed flowers and very occasionally love letters are to be found in books long undisturbed on their shelves. With what delight do I find the word ‘scarce’ pencilled in on the flyleaf by the bookseller, though the fact that the book has remained unsold for years, possibly decades, suggests that purchasers are scarcer still."
"The Renaissance knew of strange manners of poisoning—poisoning by a helmet and a lighted torch, by an embroidered glove and a jewelled fan, by a gilded pomander and by an amber chain. Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book."
— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (via apoisonedbook)
"I have read my books by many lights, hoarding their beauty, their wit or wisdom against the dark days when I would have no book, nor a place to read. I have known hunger of the belly kind many times over, but I have known a worse hunger: the need to know and to learn."
— Louis L’Amour, Education of a Wandering Man (via zerogate)
