LIBRARY QUOTES III
quotations about libraries
Not too long ago, I was spoon-feeding my nephew baby porridge, when I overheard a piece on the breakfast news about libraries. My ears perked up. Like every author, I feel a seeing-red-rage rise up inside me each time I hear about the library cuts. I looked up. A spokesperson from the Institute of Economic Affairs began their spiel. I gave my nephew another a spoonful of porridge. I listened. I missed my nephew's mouth with the spoon. I started making outrage-noises; they sounded not unlike a snorting pig mixed up with a pot of boiling water. My nephew grabbed his porridge spoon. I grabbed my laptop and started typing out the words that I was hearing. They seemed so ludicrous that I thought I'd heard them wrong. Your average library doesn't come close to having as much information as the Internet. And coffee shops have the internet. We don't need libraries anymore -- you can [buy] books online instead for literally pennies! My nephew covered himself in porridge: eyebrows, nose, most of forehead, a lot of his fluffy hair too. The breakfast news slid onto its next story, in that compartmentalizing way it has, and we were left reeling, porridge-splattered and screaming.
POLLY HO-YEN
"The internet and coffee shops are no replacement for libraries", The Guardian, June 10, 2016
A library is a precious catacomb, wherein are embalmed and preserved imperishably the great minds of the dead who will never die.
CHATFIELD
attributed, Day's Collacon
Shelved around us lie
The mummied authors.
BAYARD TAYLOR
The Poet's Journal, Third Evening
My library is an archive of longings.
SUSAN SONTAG
As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
CICERO
ad familiares
Within the sacred walls of libraries we find the best thoughts, the purest feelings, and the most exalted imaginings of our race.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
attributed, Day's Collacon
I remember those days so clearly. My sister and I burrowing into shelves as though we were mining for gold, dreaming about the kind of life that we wanted to lead, the jobs we wanted to do, the kind of people that we wanted to be. Each book was so much more than the paper it was printed on; they were doors, possible pathways into our future, and by just being there in the library, we had all the keys.
POLLY HO-YEN
"The internet and coffee shops are no replacement for libraries", The Guardian, June 10, 2016
Nothing is more impotent than an unread library.
JOHN WATERS
Role Models
Libraries are a pillar of any society. I believe our lack of attention to funding and caring for them properly in the United States has a direct bearing on problems of literacy, productivity, and our inability to compete in today's world. Libraries are everyman's free university.
JOHN JAKES
Homeland
The smell of the library was always the same -- the musty odour of old clothes mixed with the keener scent of unwashed bodies, creating what the chief librarian had once described as "the steam of the social soup."
PETER ACKROYD
Chatterton
Libraries are the wardrobes of our literature, whence men, properly informed, might bring something for ornament, much for curiosity, and more for use.
GEORGE DYER
History of the University and Colleges of Cambridge; Including Notices Relating to the Founders and Eminent Men
My library was dukedom large enough.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The Tempest
A library is a foundation and a fountain of knowledge. It is a friend to sustainable development.
MACHELE KAFUMU MAISA
"Tanzania: When Learning Environment Improves Performance", Tanzania Daily News, June 16, 2016
Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
The Proud Highway
A good library is an anchor to keep a young man from roving, and a helm to aid an old man to gain the greatest possible benefit from what remains of the breeze.
WILLIAM D'ARCY HALEY
Words for the Workers: In a Series of Lectures to Workingmen, Mechanics, and Apprentices
The possession of a library, or the free use of it, no more constitutes learning, than the possession of wealth constitutes generosity.
SAMUEL SMILES
Self-Help
We may sit in our library and yet be in all quarters of the earth.
JOHN LUBBOCK
The Pleasures of Life
In all, libraries help build a strong and vibrant community by literacy improvements, by connecting people and ideas, helping with workforce development and by helping the development of a community identity.
P. D. MOWBRAY, JR.
"Libraries are more than books", Roanoke Times, May 19, 2016
What a place to be is an old library! It seems as though all the souls of all the writers, that have bequeathed their labours ... were reposing here, as in some dormitory, or middle state. I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets.
CHARLES LAMB
Elia and the Last Essays of Elia
The establishment of a library is an ideal benchmark for serving the society.
BIPIN RAI
"There's now a library for the homeless in Delhi", Deccan Chronicle, June 6, 2016