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
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
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
A library is the first step of a thousand journeys, portal to a thousand worlds.
—Orson Scott Card (b.1951) American Author
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
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
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
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
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
What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all the souls of all the writers that have bequeathed their labors to these Bodleians were reposing here, as in some dormitory or middle state. I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage; and the odor of their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential apples which grew amid the happy orchard.
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834) British Essayist, Poet
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
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
An hour spent in the library is worth a month in the laboratory.
—Unknown
There are seventy million books in American libraries, but the one you want is always out.
—Thomas Masson (1866–1934) American Journalist, Humorist, Author
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
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
A library implies an act of faith.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) 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 Public Servant, Journalist, Author, Columnist
My library was dukedom large enough.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
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
Here Greek and Roman find themselves alive along these crowded shelves; and Shakespeare treads again his stage, and Chaucer paints anew his age.
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–92) American Quaker Poet, Abolitionist
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
I ransack public libraries, and find them full of sunk treasure.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one.
—Augustine Birrell (1850–1933) English Politician, Essayist
A library is but the soul’s burying ground. It is a land of shadows.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
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
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
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 is a path to the future—find yours there.
—Mary Higgins Clark (1929–2020) American Suspense Novelist
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist