LIBRARY QUOTES V

quotations about libraries

I love libraries. Being surrounded by books makes me feel safe, the way some people need trees or mountains around them to feel secure. Not me -- nature's not what I cling to. I cling to books.

EMILY WING SMITH

Back When You Were Easier to Love


When you absolutely positively have to know, ask a librarian.

AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

slogan


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


A great library contains the diary of the human race.

GEORGE DAWSON

Address on Opening the Birmingham Free Library


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


Libraries collect the works of genius of every language and every age.

GEORGE BANCROFT

History of the Colonization of the United States


I have always imagined Paradise as a kind of library.

JORGE LUIS BORGES

Dreamtigers

Tags: Jorge Luis Borges


My library is a friend of a thousand years.

KYO-SYA

attributed, Day's Collacon


A library is but the soul's burial ground; it is the land of shadows. Yet one is impressed with the thought, the labor, and the struggle, represented in this vast catacomb of books. Who could dream, by the placid waters that issue from the level mouths of brooks into the lake, all the plunges, the whirls, the divisions, and foaming rushes that had brought them down to the tranquil exit? And who can guess through what channels of disturbance, and experiences of sorrow, the heart passed that has emptied into this Dead Sea of books?

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Star Papers: Or, Experiences of Art and Nature

Tags: Henry Ward Beecher


A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library.

SHELBY FOOTE

attributed, North Carolina Libraries


It was good to walk into a library again; it smelled like home.

ELIZABETH KOSTOVA

The Historian


The gloomy recess of an ecclesiastical library is like a harbor, into which a far-travelling curiosity has sailed with its freight, and cast anchor: the ponderous tomes are bales of the mind's merchandise; odors of distant countries and times steal from the red leaves the swelling ridges of vellum, and the titles in tarnished gold.

ROBERT ELDRIDGE ARIS WILLMOTT

Pleasures, Objects, and Advantages of Literature


Libraries ... are as the shrines where all the relics of ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays Or Counsels, Civil & Moral

Tags: Francis Bacon


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

Tags: Virginia Woolf


You receive this writing that you may know how to preserve the books which I shall deliver to you; and you shall set these in order and anoint them with oil of cedar and put them away in earthen vessels.

APOCRYPHA

Testament of Moses 1:16-18


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

Tags: Anatole France


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

Tags: Kurt Vonnegut


A library could show you everything if you knew where to look.

PAT CONROY

My Reading Life


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

Tags: Daniel Handler


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

Tags: Finley Peter Dunne