For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them ; they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.
Source: Areopagitica: a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing to the Parliament of England, 1644.
-- John Milton, (Dec 9 1608-1674), English poet, essayist; He was a master epic poetry; Wrote in four languages including Paradise Lost, 1676, after losing his sight.