Library Quotes - Page 30

• The Bible is actually a library of books-some long, some short- written over hundreds of years by many authors. Behind each one, however, was [the] Author: the Spirit of God.

  Billy Graham

  Bible, Book, Years

  Billy Graham (2007). “The Journey: Living by Faith in an Uncertain World”, p.17, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• One function of the librarian, as he saw it, was to blunt the edge of these differences and to provide a means whereby the rich and poor could live happily side by side. The public library was a great leveler, supplying a literature by which the ordinary man could experience some of the pleasures of the rich, and providing a common ground where employer and employee could meet on equal terms.

  Lewis Henry Steiner

  Mean, Men, Differences

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• At the 1894 ALA conference it was fairly well agreed that the primary goal of the public library must be to teach good citizenship. Libraries recognized that such "Americanization" could be achieved through literacy. Thus, teaching immigrants to read was not just a benefit in and of itself; literacy would also serve the interests of democracy.

  Kevin Mattson

  Teaching, Goal, Democracy

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• Alliances are crucial to success in the political sphere. However, if we are to approach other organizations to propose alliances for the public good, we must be prepared to assert a far more important role for the library. We must clearly define what we do and establish and assert the relationship of libraries to basic democratic freedoms, to the fundamental humanistic principles that are central to our very way of life. . . .

  Arthur Curley

  Organization, Political, Democracy

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• When the function of libraries is put in terms of their contributions to the community, people see their centrality. The challenge to us is to continue to help them see it in those terms to describe our larger purposes. We must assert that libraries are central to the quality of life in our society; that libraries have a direct role in preserving democratic freedoms. Free access to information and the opportunity of every individual to improve his or her mind, employment prospects, and lifestyle are fundamental rights in our society.

  Arthur Curley

  Opportunity, Rights, People

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• One of my greatest sources of pride as president of the New York Public Library is the continuance of the library's open, free, and democratic posture, the fact that we are here for Everyman, that we are indeed Everyman's university, the place where the scholar who is not college-affiliated can come and work and feel at home.

  Vartan Gregorian

  New York, Home, Pride

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• Freedom is found through the portals of our nation's libraries.

  David McCullough

  Democracy, Portal, Found

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• Imagine if all of life were determined by majority rule. Every meal would be a pizza. Every pair of pants, even those in a Brooks Brothers suit, would be stone-washed denim. Celebrity diet and exercise books would be the only thing on the shelves at the library. And - since women are a majority of the population - we'd all be married to Mel Gibson.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Life, Brother, Book

  P.J. O'Rourke (2015). “Thrown Under the Omnibus”, p.207, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• I'd be happy if I could think that the role of the library was sustained and even enhanced in the age of the computer.

  Bill Gates

  Thinking, Age, Roles

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• If you cut funding to libraries, you cut the lifeblood of our communities.

  Richard M. Daley

  Cutting, Community, Funding

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• The public library is where place and possibility meet.

  Stuart Dybek

  Possibility, Public Library

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• If you possess a library and a garden, you have everything you need. (translation from the French) Si vous possedez une bibliotheque et un jardin, vous avez tout ce qu'il vous faut.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Garden, Grace, Needs

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• Fact is Our Lord knew all about the power of money: He gave capitalism a tiny niche in His scheme of things, He gave it a chance, He even provided a first installment of funds. Can you beat that? It's so magnificent. God despises nothing. After all, if the deal had come off, Judas would probably have endowed sanatoriums, hospitals, public libraries or laboratories.

  Georges Bernanos

  Tiny, Firsts, Facts

  Georges Bernanos (1974). “The Diary of a Country Priest”, Doubleday Books

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• Making money isn't the main point of business. Money is a by-product.... A new product has been found, something of use to the world. A new industry moves into an undeveloped area. Factories go up, machines go in and you're in business. It's coincidental that people who've never seen a dime now have a dollar and barefooted kids wear shoes and have their faces washed. What's wrong with an urge that gives people libraries, hospitals, baseball diamonds and movies on a Saturday night?

  Humphrey Bogart

  Baseball, Moving, Kids

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• Every death is like the burning of a library.

  Alex Haley

  Inspirational, Burning

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• The city as a center where, any day in any year, there may be a fresh encounter with a new talent, a keen mind or a gifted specialist-this is essential to the life of a country. To play this role in our lives a city must have a soul-a university, a great art or music school, a cathedral or a great mosque or temple, a great laboratory or scientific center, as well as the libraries and museums and galleries that bring past and present together. A city must be a place where groups of women and men are seeking and developing the highest things they know.

  Margaret Mead

  Country, Art, School

  Margaret Mead, Rhoda Bubendey Métraux (1979). “Margaret Mead, some personal views”, Angus & Robertson

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• Again the early-morning sun was generous with it's warmth. All the sounds dear to a horseman were around me-the snort of the horses as they cleared their throats, the gentle swish of their tails, the tinkle of irons as we flung the saddles over their backs-little sounds of no importance, but they stay in the unconscious library of memory.

  Wynford Vaughan-Thomas

  Morning, Horse, Memories

  Wynford Vaughan-Thomas (1967). “Madly in all directions”

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• No man will ever put his hand up your dress looking for a library card.

  Joan Rivers

  Men, Hands Up, Dresses

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• More than a building that houses books and data, the library represents a window to a larger world, the place where we've always come to discover big ideas and profound concepts that help move the American story forward and the human story forward.

  Barack Obama

  Inspirational, Moving, Book

  "US public library borrowing requirements rise again" by Hermione Hoby, www.theguardian.com. January 22, 2009.

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• There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers.

  Edith Hamilton

  Book, Humility, Unique

  "Three Greek Plays". Book by Edith Hamilton, 1937.

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• For no one, in our long decline,So dusty, spiteful and divided,Had quite such pleasant friends as mine,Or loved them half as much as I did. [stanza 3]The library was most inviting:The books upon the crowded shelvesWere mainly of our private writing:We kept a school and taught ourselves. [stanza 15]From quiet homes and first beginning,Out to the undiscovered ends,Theres nothing worth the wear of winning,But laughter and the love of friends. [stanza 22]You do retain the song we set,And how it rises, trips and scans?You keep the sacred memory yet,Republicans? Republicans?[stanza 36]

  Hilaire Belloc

  Love, Song, Laughter

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• Art shouldn't be locked away in galleries and libraries and books. Art should be for everybody and not just art buffs, historians and so-called experts.

  Julian Beever

  Art, Book, Experts

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• I wanted to understand things and then be free of them. I needed to learn how to telescope things, ideas. Things were too big to see all at once, like all the books in the library-everything laying around on all the tables. You might be able to put it all into one paragraph or into one verse of a song if you could get it right.

  Bob Dylan

  Song, Book, Ideas

  Bob Dylan (2011). “Chronicles”, p.59, Simon and Schuster

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• The girls who come into my library adore the prettiness of fairies, theminiature-ness. But they are also nature lovers and lovers of adventure -- the future wild women of America. I couldn't help thinking that these little girls who love fairies deserve something lively.

  Laura Amy Schlitz

  Girl, Adventure, Thinking

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• That's exactly how I want you to feel. When you finish this book, I want you to be filled with curiosity. I want you to say, “I have to find out what happens next,” and then I want you to head to your nearest library or bookstore to pick up a copy of Wuthering Heights.

  Clare B. Dunkle

  Book, Curiosity, Want

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