These epigraphs are selected from the many that are set by Hermann Zapf in his book Manuale Typographicum, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1970.
A love of letters is the beginning of typographical wisdom. That is, the love of letters as literature and the love of letters as physical entities, having abstract beauty of their own, apart from the ideas they may express or the emotions they may evoke. John R. Biggs
Printing is fundamentally a selection of materials already in existence, and an assembling of these different varieties of types and papers and ornaments, and it is the way that they are assembled that counts in the effect. One can take almost any kind of type and produce extremely varied results by different methods of handling it. Bruce Rogers
After the basic necessities of life there is nothing more precious than books. The art of typography which produces them thus renders countless vital services to society. It serves to instruct, to spread progress in the sciences and arts, to nourish and cultivate the mind and elevate the spirit; the duty of typography is to be the agent and general interpreter of wisdom and truth -- in short, it portrays the human spirit. One might therefore call it, above all others, the art of arts and the science of sciences. Pierre Simon Fournier
The typographer who can serve his art modestly and with a sensitive understanding of the special demands made by each type face, will be the one to achieve the finest results. Paul Renner
No other art is more justified than typography in looking ahead to future centuries; for the creations of typography benefit coming generations as much as present ones. Giambattista Bodoni
No art is closer to architecture than typography. Like architecture, its first principle is the discriminative and proper adapatation of materials. Like architecture, it rests upon a system of definite conclusions. Its economies are fixed, it repudiates contorted eccentricities. Henri Focillon
A good typeface is the work of an artist. Strange as it may sound, it has a life of its own, or rather the power to kindle in the reader a certain vitality corresponding to its own. Richard von Sichowsky
A type achieves repose and harmony only if each letter's strokes and counters are properly apportioned; if the capitals are suited to the small letters and do not unbalance the words and lines; if there is neither too much nor too little space between the single letters and words; if, in short, the whole page shows a texture evenly toned without spots or holes. Whoever lacks an understanding of type cannot fully appreciate its use in composition. Peter Jessen
The graphic signs called letters are so completely blended with the stream of written thought that their presence therein is as unperceived as the ticking of a clock in the measurement of time. Only by an effort of attention does the layman discover that they exist at all. The qualities of letter forms at their best are the qualities of a classic time: order, simplicity, grace. To try to learn and repeat their excellence is to put oneself under training in a simple and severe school of design. William Addison Dwiggins
Geometry can produce legible letters, but art alone makes them beautiful. Art begins where geometry ends, and imparts to letters a character transcending mere measurement. Paul Standard
The full practice of typography is an unending process of learning and a challenge to individual skill, imagination and common sense, but this need not imply exhibitionism; authentic printing has no need to proclaim itself. Oliver Simon