A large library is apt to distract rather than to instruct the learner; it is much better to be confined to a few authors than to wander at random over many.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
If I were founding a university I would begin with a smoking room; next a dormitory; and then a decent reading room and a library. After that, if I still had more money that I couldn’t use, I would hire a professor and get some text books.
—Stephen Leacock (1869–1944) Canadian Political Scientist, Humorist
A public library is the most enduring of memorials, the trustiest monument for the preservation of an event or a name or an affection; for it, and it only, is respected by wars and revolutions, and survives them.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
In truth, the Library includes all verbal structures, all variations permitted by the twenty-five orthographical symbols, but not a single example of absolute nonsense.
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine Writer, Essayist, Poet
He loved this street [42nd Street], not for the people or the shops but for the stone lions that guarded the great main building of the Public Library, a building filled with books and unimaginably vast, and which he had never yet dared to enter.
—James Baldwin (1924–87) American Novelist, Social Critic
As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American Head of State, Military Leader
Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civil countries, in a thousand years, have set in best order the results of their learning and wisdom. The men themselves were hid and inaccessible, solitary, impatient of interruption, fenced by etiquette; but the thought which they did not uncover to their bosom friend is here written out in transparent words to us, the strangers of another age.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
From this slender beginning I have gradually formed a numerous and select library, the foundation of all my works, and the best comfort of my life, both at home and abroad.
—Edward Gibbon (1737–94) English Historian, Politician
What is more important in a library than anything else—than everything else—is the fact that it exists.
—Archibald MacLeish (1892–1982) American Poet, Dramatist
Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit, reminders of order, calm and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark. The pleasure they give is steady, unorgastic, reliable, deep and long-lasting. In any library in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still and absorbed.
—Germaine Greer (b.1939) Australia Academic, Journalist, Scholar, Writer
A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas a place where history comes to life.
—Norman Cousins (1915–90) American Journalist, Author, Academic, Activist
A library is a path to the future—find yours there.
—Mary Higgins Clark (1929–2020) American Suspense Novelist
When an old man dies, a library burns down.
—African Proverb
You’ve got to love libraries. You’ve got to love books. You’ve got to love poetry. You’ve got to love everything about literature. Then, you can pick the one thing you love most and write about it.
—Ray Bradbury (b.1920) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
Let us pity those poor rich men who live barrenly in great bookless houses! Let us congratulate the poor that, in our day, books are so cheap that a man may every year add a hundred volumes to his library for the price of what his tobacco and beer would cost him. Among the earliest ambitions to be excited in clerks, workmen, journeymen, and, indeed, among all that are struggling up from nothing to something, is that of owning, and constantly adding to a library of good books. A little library, growing larger every year, is an honorable part of a young man’s history. It is a man’s duty to have books. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
I ransack public libraries, and find them full of sunk treasure.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
More than a building that houses books and data, the library has always been a window to a larger world—a place where we’ve always come to discover big ideas and profound concepts that help move the American story forward.
—Barack Obama (b.1961) American Head of State, Academic, Politician, Author
Without libraries what have we?. We have no past and no future.
—Ray Bradbury (b.1920) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
My library was dukedom large enough.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
Everything you need for your better future and success has already been written. And guess what? It’s all available. All you have to do is go to the library.
—Jim Rohn (1930–2009) American Entrepreneur, Author, Motivational Speaker
A library of wisdom, is more precious than all wealth, and all things that are desirable cannot be compared to it. Whoever therefore claims to be zealous of truth, of happiness, of wisdom or knowledge, must become a lover of books.
—Richard de Bury
Libraries are as the shrines where all the relics of saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one.
—Augustine Birrell (1850–1933) English Politician, Essayist
Madam, a circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge; it blossoms through the year. And depend on it that they who are so fond of handling the leaves, will long for the fruit at last.
—Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) Irish-born British Playwright, Poet, Elected Rep
Never lend books, for no one ever returns them. The only books I have in my library are those that other folks have lent me.
—Anatole France (1844–1924) French Novelist
Be a little careful about your library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be sure. But the real question is, what it will do with you? You will come here and get books that will open your eyes, and your ears, and your curiosity, and turn you inside out or outside in.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
A library is the first step of a thousand journeys, portal to a thousand worlds.
—Orson Scott Card (b.1951) American Author
Libraries remind us that truth isn’t about who yells the loudest, but who has the right information. Because even as we’re the most religious of people, America’s innovative genius has always been preserved because we also have a deep faith in facts.
—Barack Obama (b.1961) American Head of State, Academic, Politician, Author
A library implies an act of faith.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
A man’s library is a sort of harem.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
A few Books well chosen, and well made use of will be more profitable than a great confused Alexandrian library.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
The great British Library—an immense collection of volumes of all ages and languages, many of which are now forgotten, and most of which are seldom read: one of these sequestered pools of obsolete literature to which modern authors repair, and draw buckets full of classic lore, or “pure English, undefiled” wherewith to swell their own scanty rills of thought.
—Washington Irving (1783–1859) American Essayist, Biographer, Historian
Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books. Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the book-worm.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses?
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
We enter our studies, and enjoy a society which we alone can bring together. We raise no jealousy by conversing with one in preference to another: we give no offense to the most illustrious by questioning him as long as we will, and leaving him as abruptly. Diversity of opinion raises no tumult in our presence; each interlocutor stands before us, speaks or is silent, and we adjourn or decide the business at our leisure.
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) English Writer, Poet
It seems to me one cannot sit down in that place [the Round Reading room of the British Museum] without a heart full of grateful reverence. I own to have said my grace at the table, and to have thanked Heaven for my English birthright, freely to partake of these beautiful books, and speak the truth I find there.
—William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–63) English Novelist
A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.
—Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish Writer
Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends, too, we should return to them again and again—for, like true friends, they will never fail us—never cease to instruct—never cloy—Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
Here with hosts of friends
I revel who can never change or chill;
Though the fleeting years and seasons
they are fair and faithful still!
Kings and courtiers, knights and jesters,
belles and beaux of far away,
Meet and mingle with the beauties
and the heroes of to-day.
All the lore of ancient sages,
all the light of souls divine,
All the music, wit and wisdom
of the gray old world is mine,
Garnered here where fall the shadows
of the mystic pineland’s gloom!
And I sway an airy kingdom
from my little book-lined room.
—Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874–1942) Canadian Novelist
Your library is your paradise.
—Desiderius Erasmus (c.1469–1536) Dutch Humanist, Scholar
The library, with its tall bays and overhanging gallery, looked east and was already rather dark. Harriet found it restful.
—Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) British Crime Writer
Your library is your portrait.
—Holbrook Jackson (1874–1948) British Journalist, Writer, Publisher
My books are my tools, and the greater their variety and perfection the greater the help to my literary work.
—Tryon Edwards American Theologian
Most homes valued at over $250,000 have a library. That should tell us something.
—Jim Rohn (1930–2009) American Entrepreneur, Author, Motivational Speaker
My Alma mater was books, a good library… I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.
—Malcolm X (1925–65) American Civil Rights Leader
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
A library may be regarded as the solemn chamber in which a man may take counsel with all who have been wise, and great, and good, and glorious among the men that have gone before him.
—George Dawson (1821–76) English Nonconformist Preacher, Activist