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
I ransack public libraries, and find them full of sunk treasure.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
It is almost everywhere the case that soon after it is begotten the greater part of human wisdom is laid to rest in repositories.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
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
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
A library is a place where you learn what teachers were afraid to teach you.
—Alan M. Dershowitz (b.1938) American Lawyer, Scholar
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
A library is where you go to escape the world outside and to explore the worlds within.
—Elizabeth Winthrop (b.1948) American Writer
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 is the first step of a thousand journeys, portal to a thousand worlds.
—Orson Scott Card (b.1951) American Author
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
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
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
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
Your library is your portrait.
—Holbrook Jackson (1874–1948) British Journalist, Writer, Editor
Nothing sickens me more than the closed door of a library.
—Barbara W. Tuchman (1912–89) American Historian, Journalist
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
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
Without libraries what have we?. We have no past and no future.
—Ray Bradbury (b.1920) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
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
I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine Writer, Essayist, Poet
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
The library is the temple of learning, and learning has liberated more people than all the wars in history.
—Carl Rowan (1925–2000) American Journalist, Author, Columnist
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
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 (1912–1990) American Political Journalist
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
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
A man’s library is a sort of harem.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
When an old man dies, a library burns down.
—African Proverb
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