Hartley Coleridge, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lives of Northern Worthies, (1836) "Roger Ascham".
“

Why are not more gems from our early prose writers scattered over the country by the periodicals?…But Great old books of the great old authors are not in everybody's reach; and though it is better to know them thoroughly than to know them only here and there, yet it is a good work to give a little to those who have neither time nor means to get more. Let every book-worm, when in any fragrant, scarce old tome, he discovers a sentence, a story, an illustration, that does his heart good, hasten to give it the widest circulation that newspapers and magazines, penny and halfpenny, can afford.

— Hartley Coleridge on Quotations

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Why are not more gems from our early prose writers scattered over the country by the periodicals?…But Great old books of the great old authors are not in everybody's reach; and though it is better to know them thoroughly than to know them only here and there, yet it is a good work to give a little to those who have neither time nor means to get more. Let every book-worm, when in any fragrant, scarce old tome, he discovers a sentence, a story, an illustration, that does his heart good, hasten to give it the widest circulation that newspapers and magazines, penny and halfpenny, can afford." in the context of "Hartley Coleridge, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lives of Northern Worthies, (1836) "Roger Ascham"." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Quote Image
Source: Wikiquote: "Quotations" (C) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Hartley Coleridge

About Hartley Coleridge

David Hartley Coleridge (19 September 1796 – 6 January 1849) was an English poet, biographer, essayist, and teacher. He was the eldest son of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.