Library quotes

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◆ I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

- Jorge Luis Borges100

◆ The only true equalisers in the world are books; the only treasure-house open to all comers is a library; the only wealth which will not decay is knowledge; the only jewel which you can carry beyond the grave is wisdom.

- J. A. Langford100

◆ It is, however, not to the museum, or the lecture-room, or the drawing-school, but to the library, that we must go for the completion of our humanity. It is books that bear from age to age the intellectual wealth of the world.

- Owen Meredith100

◆ Me, poor man, my library Was dukedom large enough.

- William Shakespeare, The Tempest99

◆ The library of a good man is one of his most constant, cheerful, and instructive companions; and as it has delighted him in youth, so will it solace him in old age.

- C. Frognall Dibdin99

◆ How still and peaceful is a Library! It seems quiet as the grave, tranquil as heaven, a cool collection of the thoughts of the men of all times. And yet, approach and open the pages, and you find them full of dissension and disputes, alive with abuse and detraction— a huge, many-volumed satire upon man, written by himself. . . . What a broad thing is a library — all shades of opinion reflected on its catholic bosom, as the sunbeams and shadows of a summer's day upon the ample mirror of a lake.

- George Gilfillan99

◆ Every man should have a library....And when we have got our little library we may look proudly at Shakspeare, and Bacon, and Bunyan, as they stand in our bookcase in company with other noble spirits, and one or two of whom the world knows nothing, but whose worth we have often tested. These may cheer and enlighten us, may inspire us with higher aims and aspirations, may make us, if we use them rightly, wiser and better men.

- William A. E. Axon99

◆ 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.

- Charles Lamb99

◆ Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. When we enquire into any subject, the first thing we have to do, is to know what books have treated of it. This leads us to look at catalogues, and the backs of books in libraries.

- Samuel Johnson99

◆ A scholar must shape his own shell, secrete it, one might almost say, for secretion is only separation, you know, of certain elements derived from the materials of the world about us. And a scholar's study, with the books lining its walls, is his shell.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes99

◆ In my garden I spend my days; in my library I spend my nights. My interests are divided between my geraniums and my books. With the flower I am in the present; with the book I am in the past. I go into my library, and all history unrolls before me.

- Alexander Smith99

◆ The truest owner of a Library is he who has bought each book for the love he bears to it; who is happy and content to say,—" Here are my jewels; my choicest material possessions.

- Frank Carr99

◆ A very short examination of a library is sufficient to enable one to describe the owner in general and unmistakable terms.

- Author Unkown99

◆ It often happens that the quotations constitute the most valuable part of a book.

- Vicesimus Knox99

◆ There is not less wit, not less invention, in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that book.

- Pierre Boyle99