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
Without libraries what have we?. We have no past and no future.
—Ray Bradbury (b.1920) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
An hour spent in the library is worth a month in the laboratory.
—Unknown
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
Your library is your portrait.
—Holbrook Jackson (1874–1948) British Journalist, Writer, Publisher
A library is the first step of a thousand journeys, portal to a thousand worlds.
—Orson Scott Card (b.1951) American Author
My library was dukedom large enough.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
When an old man dies, a library burns down.
—African Proverb
Your library is your paradise.
—Desiderius Erasmus (c.1469–1536) Dutch Humanist, Scholar
The student has his Rome, his Florence, his whole glowing Italy, within the four walls of his library. He has in his books the ruins of an antique world and the glories of a modern one.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
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
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
My books are my tools, and the greater their variety and perfection the greater the help to my literary work.
—Tryon Edwards American Theologian
A library is a path to the future—find yours there.
—Mary Higgins Clark (1929–2020) American Suspense 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 library is where you meet fascinating characters you never forget.
—Judy Blume (b.1938) American Author
Borrowers of books—those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes.
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834) British Essayist, Poet
A man’s library is a sort of harem.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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
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