"The modern king has become a vermiform appendix: useless when quiet; when obtrusive, in danger of removal."

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Indeed, the best books have a use, like sticks and stones, which is above or beside their design, not anticipated in the preface,not concluded in the appendix. Even Virgil's poetry serves a very different use to me today from what it did to his contemporaries. It has often an acquired and accidental value merely, proving that man is still man in the world.

— Henry David Thoreau