Library Quotes

• A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert.

  Andrew Carnegie

  Spring, People, Community

  103 Copy quote

• Libraries...house our dreams.

  Nikki Giovanni

  Dream, House, Our Dreams

  11 Copy quote

• A library is the first step of a thousand journeys, portal to a thousand worlds.

  Orson Scott Card

  Journey, World, Firsts

  7 Copy quote
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  My Alma mater was books, a good library... I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.

  Malcolm X

  Life, Education, Book

  Malcolm X (2015). “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”, p.187, Ballantine Books

  106 Copy quote

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  Libraries are our friends.

  Neil Gaiman

  Book, Reading, Thought Provoking

  56 Copy quote

• Access to knowledge is the superb, the supreme act of truly great civilizations. Of all the institutions that purport to do this, free libraries stand virtually alone in accomplishing this mission.

  Toni Morrison

  Wisdom, Civilization, Institutions

  14 Copy quote

• A library implies an act of faith.

  Victor Hugo

  Victor Hugo (1897). “Selected Poems from the Edition Definitive”

  12 Copy quote

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• The three most important documents a free society gives are a birth certificate, a passport, and a library card.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Giving, Important, Three

  25 Copy quote

• A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life.

  Norman Cousins

  Reading, Book, Ideas

  Norman Cousins (1967). “Present Tense; an American Editor's Odyssey”

  66 Copy quote

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• The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Reading

  20 Copy quote

• Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.

  Ray Bradbury

  Book, Reading, Past

  Speech by Minister Pallo Jordan on launch of the South African Library Week at the Bessie Head Public Library, Msunduzi Minicipality, Pietermaritzburg, www.dac.gov.za. March 14, 2009.

  27 Copy quote

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• The studious silence of the library ... Thought is the thought of thought. Tranquil brightness.

  James Joyce

  Silence, Brightness, Tranquil

  "Ulysses".

  7 Copy quote

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• If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries. These libraries should be open to all — except the censor. We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. For the Bill of Rights is the guardian of our security as well as our liberty.

  John F. Kennedy

  Wise, Strong, Reading

  Saturday Review, p. 44, October 29, 1960.

  16 Copy quote

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• 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.

  Carl Sagan

  Teacher, Inspire, Mind

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.307, Ballantine Books

  21 Copy quote

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• A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Educational, Book, Reading

  51 Copy quote

• Libraries never let us forget who we are, for their worth stands by the knowledge they keep and save for us.

  Virginia Hamilton

  Who We Are, Forget

  39 Copy quote

• Librarians have always been among the most thoughtful and helpful people. They are teachers without a classroom.

  Willard Scott

  Teacher, Book, Reading

  49 Copy quote

• If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.

  Frank Zappa

  Funny, Education, Sex

  156 Copy quote

• Libraries: Here is where people, one frequently finds, lower their voices, and raise their minds.

  Richard Armour

  Voice, People, Mind

  Richard Armour (1961). “A Safari Into Satire”

  18 Copy quote

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  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

  War, Names, Memorial

  Mark Twain, Paul Fatout (1997). “Mark Twain Speaks for Himself”, p.146, Purdue University Press

  66 Copy quote

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• If you want to be a reference librarian, you must learn to overcome not only your shyness but also the shyness of others!

  S. R. Ranganathan

  Inspirational, Learning, Overcoming

  S. R. Ranganathan (2006). “The Five Laws of Library Science”, Ess Ess Publications

  193 Copy quote

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• The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.

  Dr. Seuss

  Inspirational, Life, Positive

  253 Copy quote

• The library is the temple of learning, and learning has liberated more people than all the wars in history.

  Carl T. Rowan

  Education, War, Book

  56 Copy quote

• Libraries are starting places for the adventure of learning that can go on whatever one's vocation and location in life. Reading is an adventure like that of discovery itself. Libraries are our base camp.

  James H. Billington

  Reading, Adventure, Discovery

  James H. Billington (1988). “Books and the world”

  10 Copy quote

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• A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.

  Franz Kafka

  Book, Sea, Frozen

  Letter to Oskar Pollak, 27 Jan. 1904

  8 Copy quote

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