Books have many charming qualities to such as know how to choose them;… — Essays
SAPIR 861
Books have many charming qualities to such as know how to choose them; but every good has its ill; 'tis a pleasure that is not pure and clean, no more than others: it has its inconveniences, and great ones too. The soul indeed is exercised therein; but the body, the care of which I must withal never neglect, remains in the meantime without action, and grows heavy and sombre. I know no excess more prejudicial to me, nor more to be avoided in this my declining age.
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (WLC), CC BY 4.0