Various

“ Professor Jowett was similarly modest:—"I am afraid that I cannot add anything worth your having to Sir John Lubbock's list. It is a very good list, the chief fault being that it is too long."
Professor Freedman and Mr. Froude, too, agreeing for once, sent expressions of modest inability to compete with Sir John Lubbock. Mr. Froude said: "People must choose their own reading, and Sir John Lubbock's list will do for a guide as well as others. ”

“ For instance, as regards the "Sheking" and the "Analects " of Confucius, I must humbly confess that I do not greatly admire either, but I recommended them because they are held in the most profound veneration by the Chinese race, containing 400,000,000 of our fellow men. ”

“ It will be observed that while large additions, amounting to several hundred works in all, have been proposed, very few omissions have been suggested. As regards the few works with reference to which doubts have been expressed—namely, the few Oriental books, the Apostolic Fathers, &c.—I may observe that I drew up the list, not as that of the hundred best books, but, which is very different, of those which on the whole are perhaps best worth reading. ”