Jeremy Collier Quotes

Books support us in our solitude and keep us from being a burden to ourselves.

A man may as well expect to grow stronger by always eating as wiser by always reading

In his entry under the verb ‘to antedate’, Johnson quotes the essayist Jeremy Collier: ‘By reading, a man does, as it were, antedate his life, and makes himself contemporary with the ages past.’ It is Johnson’s engagement with the past and his revival of a diffuse pot-pourri of materials that make the Dictionary such an unexpectedly vibrant work. At

a man may as well expect to grow stronger by always eating, as wiser by always reading.