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Quotations About Libraries and Librarians
Author List
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Anonymous
For him that stealeth a Book from this Library, let it change into a serpent in his
hand and rend him. Let him be struck with Palsy, and all his Members blasted. Let him languish in
Pain crying aloud for Mercy and let there be no sur-cease to his Agony till he sink in
Dissolution. Let Bookworms gnaw his Entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not, and when at last
he goeth to his final Punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him for ever and aye
— Curse Against Book Stealers
Monastery of San Pedro, Barcelona
[Editor: this quote is NOT anonymous. The quote is in The Old Librarians's Almanack which
is itself a brilliant and very funny forgery by Edmund Lester Pearson. For details see, Wayne A.
Wiegand, "The History of a Hoax: Edmund Lester Pearson, John Cotton Dana, and the Old Librarian's Almanack." Beta Phi Mu Chapbook No. 13. Thanks to Ken Miller for pointing this out.]
A keeper of books
— Anonymous
Si, ténte par le demon,
Tu dérobes ce livre,
Souviens-toi qu'un fripon
N'est pas digne de vivre
— Anonymous
The medicine chest of the soul
— Inscription over the door of the Library at Thebes.
As regards anything besides these, my son, take a warning:
To the making of many books there is no end, and much devotion
to them is wearisome to the flesh
— Ecclesiastes 12:12 (New World Translation 1961)
Nutrimentum spiritus
(Food for the soul)
— Inscription on the Berlin Royal Library.
To read a book for the first time is to make an acquaintance with a new friend; to read it
for a second time is to meet an old one
— Anonymous, Chinese saying
He who lends a book is an idiot.
He who returns the book is more of an idiot.
— Anonymous, Arabic Proverb
Alcott
The richest minds need not large libraries
— Table Talk. Bk. I.
Amos Bronson ALCOTT
Armour
Library
Here is where people,
One frequently finds,
Lower their voices
And raise their minds
— Light Armour McGraw-Hill, 1954.
Richard Armour
Ashe
Throughout my formal education I spent many, many hours in public and
school libraries. Libraries became courts of last resort, as it were. The current definitive
answer to almost any question can be found within the four walls of most libraries
— Arthur ASHE (1943-1993)
Asimov
I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not
enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true
architecture, I got out of the public library. For an impoverished child
whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to
wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had
the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it
Now, when I read constantly about the way in which library funds are
being cut and cut, I can only think that the door is closing and that
American society has found one more way to destroy itself
— I, Asimov New York: Doubleday, 1994.
Isaac ASIMOV
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Bacon
Libraries are as the shrines where all the relics of the ancient saints,
full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed
— Libraries
Francis BACON (1561-1626)
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and
digested
— "Of Studies" Essays II
Francis BACON (1561-1626)
Beaumont and Fletcher
That place that does contain
My books, the best companions, is to me
A glorious court, where hourly I converse
With the old sages and philosophers;
And sometimes, for variety, I confer
With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels;
Calling their victories, if unjustly got,
Unto a strict account, and, in my fancy,
Deface their ill-placed statues
— The Elder Brother. Act I, sc. ii, L. 177.
Francis BEAUMONT (1586-1616) and John FLETCHER (1576-1625)
Baudrillard
Information can tell us everything. It has all the answers. But they are answers to questions we have not asked, and which doubtless don't even arise
— Jean BAUDRILLARD
Beecher
A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life
— Henry Ward BEECHER
A little library growing each year is an honorable part of a man's history
— Henry Ward BEECHER
A library is but the soul's burial-ground. It is the land of shadows
— Henry Ward BEECHER Star Papers. Oxford. Bodleian Library
Belinskii
Children's books are written for upbringing...but upbringing is a great thing; it decides
the fate of the human being
— Vissarion Grigor'evich BELINSKII (1811-1841)
Birrell
Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one
— Augustine BIRRELL (1850-1933) "Book Buying" Obiter Dicta
Libraries are not made; they grow
— Augustine BIRRELL (1850-1933) "Book Buying" Obiter Dicta
Borges
My father gave me free run of his library. When I think of my boyhood, I
think in terms of the books I read
— Jorge Luis BORGES (1899-1986)
Bradbury
You must live feverishly in a library. Colleges are not going to do any good unless you are
raised and live in a library everyday of your life
— Ray Douglas BRADBURY (1920- ) Cited in Writer's Digest, February 1976, p25
Brown
Langdon had been inside hermetic vaults many times, but it was always an unsettling experience... something about entering an airtight container where the oxygen was regulated by a reference librarian.
— Dan Brown Angels and Demons
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Carnegie
There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free
Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office,
nor wealth receives the slightest consideration
— Andrew CARNEGIE
Carlyle
The true University of these days is a Collection of Books
— "The Hero as Man of Letters". On Heroes and Hero Worship.
Thomas CARLYLE (1795-1881)
Cicero
A room without a book is like a body without a soul
— Marcus Tullius Cicero (January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC)
Cooke
The reflections and histories of men and women throughout the world are
contained in books....America's greatness is not only recorded in books, but it is also dependent
upon each and every citizen being able to utilize public libraries
— Terence COOKE (1921-1983)
Cornwall
All round the room in silent servants wait,
My friends in every season, bright and dim
— Barry CORNWALL My Books
Cousins
The library is not a shrine for the worship of books. It is not a temple
where literary incense must be burned or where one's devotion to the bound book is expressed in
ritual. 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- ) Cited in ALA Bulletin, Oct. 1954, p.475
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Davies
'Children, don't speak so coarsely,' said Mr Webster, who had a vague
notion that some supervision should be exercised over his daughters'
speech, and that a line should be drawn, but never knew quite when to
draw it. He had allowed his daughters to use his library without
restraint, and nothing is more fatal to maidenly delicacy of speech than
the run of a good library
— Robertson DAVIES Tempest Tost
Dawson
A great library contains the diary of the human race
— George Mercer DAWSON (1849-1901) Address on Opening the Birmingham Free Library
Douglas
My mother and my father were illiterate immigrants from Russia. When I was a child
they were constantly amazed that I could go to a building and take a book on any subject. They
couldn't believe this access to knowledge we have here in America. They couldn't believe that it
was free
— Kirk DOUGLAS (1916- )
Downs
My lifelong love affair with books and reading continues unaffected by automation, computers, and all other forms of the twentieth-century gadgetry
— Robert DOWNS (1903- ) Books in My Life
Drucker
Information is the manager's main tool, indeed the manager's
"capital," and it is he who must decide what information he needs and
how to use it
— Peter F. DRUCKER "Managing the Information Explosion" The Wall Street Journal, April 10, 1980
Dunne
Th' first thing to have in a libry is a shelf. Fr'm time to time this can be decorated
with lithrachure. But th' shelf is th' main thing
— Finley Peter DUNNE (1867-1936) "Books" Mr Dooley Says
Dury
A factor and trader for helps to learning
— John DURY
Dyer
Libraries are the wardrobes of literature, whence men, properly informed may bring forth
something for ornament, much for curiosity, and more for use
— William DYER (1636-1696)
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Eddings
The old man was peering intently at the shelves. "I'll have to admit that he's a very competent scholar."
"Isn't he just a librarian?" Garion asked, "somebody who looks after books?"
"That's where all the rest of scholarship starts, Garion. All the books in the world won't help you if they're just piled up in a heap."
King of the Murgos, 1998 Del Rey.
— David EDDINGS
Edwards
My books are my tools, and the greater their variety and perfection, the greater the help
to my literary work
— Tryon EDWARDS (1809-1894)
Eliot
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
Choruses from The Rock
— T.S. ELIOT
Emerson
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 1000 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 (1803-1882) "Books" Society and Solitude
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Fitzgerald
I've been drunk for about a week now, and I though it might sober me up to sit in a library
— F. Scott FITZGERALD (1896-1948) The Great Gatsby, chapter 3
France
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 (1844-1924)
Fuller
It is vanity to persuade the world one hath much learning, by getting a great library
— Thomas FULLER (1608-1661) The Holy and Profane States. Of Books. Maxim I.
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Gorky
Two forces are succesfully influencing the education of a cultivated man: art and
science. Both are united in the book
— Maksim GORKY (1868-1936)
Gorman
New Laws of Librarianship:
- Libraries serve humanity
- Respect all forms by which knowledge is communicated
- Use technology intelligently to enhance service
- Protect free access to knowledge
- Honor the past & create the future
— Michael GORMAN (American Libraries 9/95)
Griggs
It often requires more courage to read some books than it does to fight a battle
— Sutton Elbert GRIGGS (1872-1930)
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Hautzig
"There was one place where I forgot the cold, indeed forgot Siberia. That was in the library. There, in that muddy village, was a great institution. Not physically, to be sure, but in every other way imaginable. It was a small log cabin, immaculately attended to with loving care; it was well lighted with oil lamps and it was warm. But best of all, it contained a small but amazing collection from the world's best literature, truly amazing considering the time, the place, and its size. From floor to ceiling it was lined with books - books, books, books. It was there that I was to become acquainted with the works of Dumas, Pasternak's translations of Shakespeare, the novels of Mark Twain, Jack London, and of course the Russians. It was in that log cabin that I escaped from Siberia - either reading there or taking the books home. It was between that library and two extraordinary teachers that I developed a lifelong passion for the great Russian novelists and poets. It was there that I learned to line up patiently for my turn to sit at a table and read, to wait - sometimes months - for a book. It was there that I learned that reading was not only a great delight, but a privilege."
— Esther HAUTZIG The endless steppe Puffin. pp. 138/9 of the 1981 ed.
Holmes
Every library should be try to be complete on something, if it were
only the history of pinheads
— Oliver Wendell HOLMES (1809-1894) The Poet at the Breakfast Table. VIII.
The first thing naturally when one enters a scholar's study or library,
is to look at his books. One gets the notion very speedily of his tastes and
the range of his pursuits by a glance round his book-shelves
— Oliver Wendell HOLMES (1809-1894) The Poet at the Breakfast Table. VIII.
My experience with public libraries is that the first volume of the
book I inquire for is out, unless I happen to want the second, when that is out
— Oliver Wendell HOLMES (1809-1894) The Poet at the Breakfast Table
Howe
My books are very few, but then the world is before me - a library open to
all - from which poverty of purse cannot exclude me - in which the meanest and most paltry volume
is sure to furnish something to amuse, if not to instruct and improve
— Joseph HOWE Letter to George Johnson, January 1824.
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Jefferson
A library book...is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and
often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, is their only capital
— Thomas JEFFERSON (1743-1826)
A democratic society depends upon an informed and educated citizenry
— Thomas JEFFERSON (1743-1826)
Information is the currency of democracy
— Thomas JEFFERSON (1743-1826)
Johnson
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public
library
— Samuel JOHNSON (1709-1784) The Rambler. March 23, 1751.
A man will turn over half a library to make one book
— Samuel JOHNSON (1709-1784) Life of Johnson. From James Boswell, April 6, 1775.
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Kennedy
We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people
— John F. KENNEDY
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Lamb
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 labours 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 the
sciential apples which grew amid the happy orchard
— Charles LAMB (1775-1834) Essays of Elia. Oxford in the Vacation
Landford
No possession can surpass, or even equal a good library, to the lover of books.
Here are treasured up for his daily use and delectation, riches which increase by being consumed,
and pleasures that never cloy
— John Alfred LANDFORD (1823-1903)
Longfellow
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 (1807-1882)
Luce
"Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there."
— Clare Booth LUCE
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Madison
A popular government without popular information, or the means of
acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps
both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean
to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which
knowledge gives
— James MADISON
Mailer
In my day the library was a wonderful place.... We didn't have visual aids and didn't have
various programs...it was a sanctuary.... So I tend to think the library should remain a center of
knowledge
— Norman MAILER (1923- ) Cited in American Libraries, July/August 1980, p. 411-412
Mann
A house without books is like a room without windows. No man has a right to bring up
children without surrounding them with books.... Children learn to read being in the presence of
books
— Horace MANN (1796-1859)
Marx
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
— Groucho MARX
Masson
There are 70 million books in American libraries, but the one I
want to read is always out
— Tom MASSON (1866-1934)
Medawar
Librarians are almost always very helpful and often almost absurdly
knowledgeable. Their skills are probably very underestimated and
largely underemployed
— Charles MEDAWAR The Social Audit Consumer Handbook, Macmillan, 1978, p. 41
Melancon
A great public library, in its catalogue and its physical disposition of its books
on shelves, is the monument of literary genres
— Robert MELANCON (1947- ) Cited in World Literature Today, Spring 1982, p.231
Melville
For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into
words or books
— Herman MELVILLE Moby Dick, chapter 110.
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Neill
"It is clear that censorship is not a cut and dried issue. There is a danger in thinking it is, for then the debate falters and understanding ends. We must realize that censorship will be with us always. It is a weapon to protect the order of society and the peace of communities. However, it is a two-edged sword and must be handled with care and caution. Of all professions librarianship must ensure that both sides of the debate remain alive. If the censorship side predominates, truth and moral progress suffer; if the anti-censorship side predominates, the drift to selfishness and anarchy presents a clear danger to the cohesion and order of the social system, the destruction of which brings us to barbarism, tyranny, and the loss of all freedom."
— S.D. NEILL "A Clash of Values: Censorship", Canadian Library Journal, February 1988, pp. 35-39
Niffenegger
"I have a sort of Christmas-morning sense of the library as a big box full of beautiful books."
— Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife (first page of first chapter)
Niger
A good library is a place, a palace where the lofty spirits of all nations
and generations meet
— Samuel NIGER (1883-1956)
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Ortega y Gasset
The librarian's mission should be, not like up to now, a mere handling of the book as an
object, but rather a know how (mise au point) of the book as a vital function
— Jose ORTEGA Y GASSET (1883-1955) Mission del Bibliotecario
Here, then, is the point at which I see the new mission of the librarian rise up
incomparably higher than all those preceding. Up until the present, the librarian
has been principally occupied with the book as a thing, as a material object. From now on he must give his attention to the book as a living function. He must become a policeman, master of the raging book
— Jose ORTEGA Y GASSET (1883-1955) A translation of OyG's address to the International Congress of Bibliographers and Librarians in Paris in 1934.
Osler
The librarian of today, and it will be true still more of the librarians of tomorrow, are not fiery dragons interposed between the people and the books. They are useful public servants, who manage libraries in the interest of the public... Many still think that a great reader, or a writer of books, will make an excellent librarian. This is pure fallacy
— Sir William Osler, 1917
A library represents the mind of its collector, his fancies and
foibles, his strength and weakness, his prejudices and preferences.
Particularly is this the case if to the character of a collector he
adds - or tries to add- the qualities of a student who wishes to know
the books and the lives of the men who wrote them. The friendships of
his life, the phases of his growth, the vagaries of his mind, all are
represented
— Sir William Osler, 1919
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Peet
"It'll sound a bit evangelical, I suppose, but I truly believe that there are few things more important, useful and protective than sharing stories with your children. After their bath, heaped into a big, deep chair, doing the voices, discussing the pictures, softening your voice as the rhythm of their breathing deepens..."
— Mal Peet, from Walker Books' website (http://www.walkerbooks.co.uk/Mal-Peet)
"I remember vividly my first visit to the town library, looking round and realising how many books there must be in the world, and thinking 'Blimey, I've got a big job on.'"
— Mal Peet, in National Literacy Trust interview (http://www.literacytrust.org.uk)
Pope
How index-learning turns no student pale,
Yet holds the eel of science by the tail!
— Alexander POPE Dunciad, Book 1.
Powell
Believers and doers are what we need -- faithful librarians who are humble in the
presence of books.... To be in a library is one of the purest of all experiences. This awareness
of library's unique, even sacred nature, is what should be instilled in our neophites
— Lawrence Clark POWELL (1906- ) A Passion for Books
Powers
Librarian is a service occupation. Gas station attendant of the
mind
— Richard Powers In The Gold Bug Variations p.35, 1991.
Pratchett
The Librarian read the cross-references, turned back to the first entry, and stared at
it through deep dark eyes for a long time. Then he put the book back carefully,
crept under his desk, and pulled the blanket over his head
— Terry Pratchett "Sourcery" from The Corgi. 1994.
The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are:
- Silence;
- Books must be returned no later than the date last shown;
and
- Do not interfere with the nature of causality
— Terry Pratchett Guards! Guards!
There was a new library in the Civic Centre. It was so new it didn't even have librarians. It had Assistant Information Officers
— Terry Pratchett Johnny and the Dead
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Ranganathan
Ranganathan's Five Laws
Books are for use.
Books are for all; or Every reader his book.
Every book its reader.
Save the time of the reader.
A library is a growing organism.
— Shiyali Ramamrita RANGANATHAN (1892-1972)
Robinson
Mary Kay is one of the secret masters of the world: a librarian. They
control information. Don't ever piss one off
— Spider ROBINSON The Callahan Touch
Ruskin
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) Sesame and Lilies. Lect i, Of Kings' Treasuries
Ryan
There's nothing to match curling up with a good book when there's a repair job to be done around the house
— Joe RYAN
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St. Ephrem the Syrian
Let books be your dining table,
And you shall be full of delights
Let them be your mattress
And you shall sleep restful nights
— Quoted in Bar Hebraues' Ethicon
St. EPHREM the Syrian (303-373)
Sagan
The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully
extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the
best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history,
to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own
contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species. I
think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about
the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be
tested by how well we support our libraries
— Carl SAGAN Cosmos
Sandwell
I am what the librarians have made me with a little assistance from a professor of Greek
and a few poets
— Bernard Keble SANDWELL (1876-1954) Quoted by J.R. Kidd in Learning and Society
Saxe
I love vast libraries; yet there is a doubt,
If one be better with them or without,
Unless he use them wisely, and, indeed,
Knows the high art of what and how to read
— John Godfrey SAXE (1816-1887) The Library
'Tis well to borrow from the good and great;
'Tis wise to learn; 'tis God-like to create!
— John Godfrey SAXE (1816-1887) The Library
Schlesinger
The public library has been historically a vital instrument of democracy and
opportunity in the United States.... Our history has been greatly shaped by people who read their
way to opportunity and achievements in public libraries
— Arthur Meier SCHLESINGER (1888-1965)
Seneca
It does not matter how many books you may have, but whether they are good or not
— Epistolae Morale
Lucius Annaeus SENECA (3 B.C.-65 A.D.)
Shakespeare
Knowing that I loved my books, he furnished me,
From mine own library with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom
— William SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616) The Tempest. Act I, sc. ii, L. 166.
Come, and take choice of all my library,
And so beguile thy sorrow
— William SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616) Titus Andronicus. Act IV, sc. i, L. 34.
Shera
Shera's Two Laws of Cataloguing
Law #1 No cataloger will accept the work of any other cataloger.
Law #2 No cataloger will accept his/her own work six months after the
cataloging.
— Jesse SHERA, Univeristy of Illinois, Graduate School of Library Science, Occasional Paper #131, Dec. 1977.
Sheridan
A circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of
diabolical knowledge! It blossoms through the year!
— R. Brinsley SHERIDAN (1751-1816) The Rivals. Act I, sc. ii.
Stone
If it is noticed that much of my outside work concerns itelf with libraries, there
is an extremely good reason for this. I think that the better part of my education, almost as
important as that secured in the schools and the universities, came from libraries
— Irving STONE (1903-1989)
St Paul
When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas,
also the books,
and above all the parchments
— St. Paul wrote to his son Timothy: (2 Timothy 4:13)
In an 1863 sermon, "Paul -- His Cloak and His Books";
C.H. Spurgeon said of Paul:
He was inspired, and yet he wants books!
He had been preaching for thirty years, and yet he wants books!
He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books!
He had a wider experience than most men do, and yet he wants books!
He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things that it was
not lawful for a man to utter, and yet he wants books!
He had written a major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books!
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Taylor
Shelved around us lie
The mummied authors
— Baynard TAYLOR (1825-1878) "Third Evening". The Poet's Journal.
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Valery
Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own
content
— Paul VALERY (1871-1945)
Vaughan
Thou can'st not die. Here thou art more than safe
Where every book is thy epitaph
— Henry VAUGHAN (1621-1695) On Sir Thomas Bodley's library
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Young
Unlearned men of books assume the care,
As eunuchs are the guardians of the fair
— Edward YOUNG (1684-1765) Love of Fame. Satire ii. L. 83.
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