For books are more than books, they are the life The very heart and core of ages past, The reason why men lived and worked and died, The essence and quintessence of their lives.

-Lowell, Amy
  'The Boston  Atheneum'.

What is beauty, saith my sufferings, then? If all the pens that ever poets held Had fed the feeling of their masters'thoughts, And every sweetness that inspired their hearts, Their minds, and muses on admire'  d themes; If all the heavenly quintessence they still From their immortal flowers of poesy, Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceive The highest reaches of a human wit; If these had made one poem's period, And all combined in beauty's worthiness, Yet should there hover in their restless heads One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least, Which into words no virtue can digest.

-Marlowe, Christopher
  Tamburlaine the Great (published1590), pt.1, act 5, sc.1.

  Poetry isthe honey of all flowers, the quintessence of all

-Nashe,Thomas