Nov 06 2008
The Importance of Books
“A ROOM WITHOUT BOOKS IS AS A BODY WITHOUT A SOUL.” -Cicero
This quote reached out to me when I was about 13 years old. It was on a bookmark, from Dartmouth Book Store, Hanover NH, and I still have it some 37 years later. On the back of the bookmark, I wrote a short essay about that quote.
Without a doubt that place was the largest bookstore I had ever been in at the time. I was mesmerized, I was thrilled, I was in heaven! I think I was so overwhelmed, as I am sometimes in bookstores today,that I only bought a little pocket guide to wildflowers, which I still have.
The soul is the most important part of the human person. To say that books in a room create the soul of that room is profound. But then again, Cicero was known to be profound! I look around my house and truly, that thought about books has taken hold of me. In our home there is no such thing as a room without books.
