"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
I have made the resolution to read only good books. He who reads bad ones is like a man who spends his life in bad company.In French, from Oeuvres complètes de Montesquieu, Tome II: Pensées. Spicilége. Geographica (Paris: Nagel, 1950), p. 644
J'ai pris la résolution de ne lire que de bons livres: celui qui les lit mauvais est semblable à un homme qui passe sa vie en mauvaise compagnie.