quotations about libraries
While on the subject of burning books, I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and destroyed records rather than have to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles. So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the media. The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.
KURT VONNEGUT
A Man Without a Country
Libraries are not a cost. They are an investment.
STEVE KRAFT
"Libraries need to embrace change to remain vital", Guelph Today, June 12, 2016
Libraries collect the works of genius of every language and every age.
GEORGE BANCROFT
History of the Colonization of the United States
Library
Here is where people,
One frequently finds,
Lower their voices
And raise their minds.
RICHARD ARMOUR
Light Armour
Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries.
ANNE HERBERT
"The Next Whole Earth Catalog", 1980
Great libraries of books are subject to certain accidents besides the damp, the worms, and the rats--that of the borrowers, not to say a word of the purloiners!
ISAAC DISRAELI
Curiosities of Literature
A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library.
SHELBY FOOTE
attributed, North Carolina Libraries
My two favorite things in life are libraries and bicycles. They both move people forward without wasting anything. The perfect day: riding a bike to the library.
PETER GOLKIN
attributed, The Librarian's Book of Quotes
The richest minds need not large libraries.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
If every library is in some sense a reflection of its readers, it is also an image of that which we are not, and cannot be.
ALBERTO MANGUEL
The Library at Night
Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
A Room of One's Own
Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have lent me.
ANATOLE FRANCE
La Vie littéraire
As a breed, local and community librarians ceaselessly challenge the constraints of isolation.
FELICITY HAYES-MCCOY
"The Library at the Edge of the World author: libraries are a community's heart", The Irish Times, June 8, 2016
A library is like an island in the middle of a vast sea of ignorance, particularly if the library is very tall and the surrounding area has been flooded.
DANIEL HANDLER
as Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid
A great library contains the diary of the human race.
GEORGE DAWSON
Address on Opening the Birmingham Free Library
Nothing is pleasanter to me than exploring in a library.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Pericles and Aspasia
He obviously regards libraries as dinosaurs that are only repositories for books. Before the digital age, that was somewhat true; however, libraries long ago saw the information age coming and have adapted quite well. Libraries no longer look at their mission as being a "book lender," but as community centers available to the public for the dissemination of information.
P. D. MOWBRAY, JR.
"Libraries are more than books", Roanoke Times, May 19, 2016
Th' first thing to have in a lib'ry is a shelf. Fr'm time to time this can be decorated with lithrachure. But th' shelf is th' main thing.
FINLEY PETER DUNNE
Mr. Dooley Says
It has long been my belief that everyone's library contains an Odd Shelf. On this shelf rests a small, mysterious corpus of volumes whose subject matter is completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection, reveals a good deal about its owner.
ANNE FADIMAN
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
A library could show you everything if you knew where to look.
PAT CONROY
My Reading Life