It was in a Liz Smith column several years ago.
"Read, it's hard to think on an empty brain."
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. ~~Isaac
Asimov
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
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. The Poet at the Breakfast Table ~~Oliver Wendell Holmes
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes
than a public library. The Rambler ~~Samuel Johnson
A great public library, in its catalogue and its physical disposition of
its books on shelves, is the monument of literary genres. ~~ Robert
Melancon
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
When you are growing up, there are two institutional places that affect
you most powerfully the church, which belongs to God, and the public
library, which belongs to you. The public library is a great equalizer.
~~Keith Richards
My alma mater was books, a good library. ~~Malcolm X
What libraries give you are all three tenses the past tense the present
tense in which we live and the future that we can only imagine. ~~Pete
Hamill
A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where
history comes to life. ~~Norman Cousins
The part of my education that has had the deepest influence wasn't any
particular essay or even a specific class; it was how I was able to
apply everything I learned in the library to certain situations in my
life. ~~Gloria Estefan
As a child, I loved to read books. The library was a window to the
world, a pathway to worlds and people far from my neighborhood in
Philadelphia. ~~Ed Bradley
The free access to information is not a privilege, but a necessity for
any free society. One of my favorite things to do as a young man was to
wander through the stacks of my hometown library. I'd just browse until
I found something interesting. ~~Edward Asner
When I was young, we couldn't afford much. But, my library card was my
key to the world. John Goodman We all love to hear a good story. We save
our stories in books. We save our books in libraries. Libraries are the
storyhouses full of all those stories and secrets. ~~Kathy Bates
Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that
of an ignorant nation. ~~Walter Cronkite
The best thing about the library is that it is available not only to me,
but to everyone. It does not discriminate. It makes itself available to
those who want to use it. ~~David Horowitz
Public libraries have been a mainstay of my life. They represent an
individual's right to acquire knowledge; they are the sinews that bind
civilized societies the world over. Without libraries, I would be a
pauper, intellectually and spiritually. ~~James A. Michener
Librarians have always been among the most thoughtful and helpful
people. They are teachers without a classroom. No libraries, no
progress. ~~Willard Scott
Libraries store the energy that fuels the imagination. They open up
windows to the world and inspire us to explore and achieve, and
contribute to improving our quality of life. Libraries change lives for
the better. ~~Sidney Sheldon
The library is not only a diary of the human race, but marks an act of
faith in the continuity of humanity. ~~Vartan Gregorian
The library is our house of intellect, our transcendental university,
with one exception: no one graduates from a library. No one possibly
can, and no one should. ~~Vartan Gregorian
The library is central to our free society. It is a critical element in
the free exchange of information at the heart of our democracy. ~~Vartan
Gregorian
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. No
committee decides who may enter, no crisis of body or spirit must
accompany the entrant. No tuition is charged, no oath sworn, no visa
demanded. Of the monuments humans build for themselves, very few say
"touch me, use me, my hush is not indifference, my space is not barrier.
If I inspire awe, it is because I am in awe of you and the possibilities
that dwell in you. ~~Toni Morrison
I'm of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian
who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved.
~~Barbara Kingsolver Here was one place where I could find out who I was
and what I was going to become. And that was the Public Library.~~ Jerzy
Kosinski
When I got my library card, that's when my life began. ~~Rita Mae Brown
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
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
Library
Here is where people,
One frequently finds,
Lower their voices
And raise their minds.
~~ Richard Armour
A book is one of the most patient of all man's inventions. Centuries
mean nothing to a well-made book. It awaits its destined reader, come
when he may, with eager hand and seeing eye. Then occurs one of the
great examples of union, that of a man with a book, pleasurable,
sometimes fruitful, potentially world-changing, simple; and in a public
library...without cost to the reader.--~~Lawrence Clark Powell
Borrowers of books--those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the
symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes.--Charles Lamb
A few Books well chosen, and well made use of will be more profitable
than a great confused Alexandrian library.--Thomas Fuller
He loved this street [42nd Street], not for the people or the shops but
for the stone lions that guarded the great main building of the Public
Library, a building filled with books and unimaginably vast, and which
he had never yet dared to enter.--James Baldwin (Go Tell It on the
Mountain)
I go into my library and all history unrolls before me.-Alexander Smith
(Dreamthrop)
I myself spent hours in the Columbia library as intimidated and
embarrassed as a famished gourmet invited to a dream restaurant where
every dish from all the world's cuisines, past and present, was
available on request.--Luigi Barzine (O America)
It may not seem like much, but think of the consequences. One overdue
library book today, the collapse of the universe by the end of the
week.--Gareth Roberts (The English Way of Death)
It seems to me one cannot sit down in that place [the Round Reading room
of the British Museum] without a heart full of grateful reverence. I own
to have said my grace at the table, and to have thanked Heaven for my
English birthright, freely to partake of these beautiful books, and
speak the truth I find there.--William Makepeace Thackeray ("The Round
Room Comes to an End" New York Times Book Review)
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where
we can find information on it.--Samuel Johnson
The library is the temple of learning, and learning has liberated more
people than all the wars in history.--Carl Rowan
A library is thought in cold storage.--Herbert Samuel
A library of wisdom, is more precious than all wealth, and all things
that are desirable cannot be compared to it. Whoever therefore claims to
be zealous of truth, of happiness, of wisdom or knowledge, must become a
lover of books.--Richard de Bury
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 (American Library Association Bulletin 10/1954)
Man, who would have thought being a librarian could be so tough?--John
Whelpley ("Harper 2.0" Andromeda [television program])
My Alma mater was books, a good library... I could spend the rest of my
life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.--Malcolm X
No university in the world has ever risen to greatness without a
correspondingly great library... When this is no longer true, then will
our civilization have come to an end.--Lawrence Clark Powell (At the
Heart of the Matter)
Nothing sickens me more than the closed door of a library.--Barbara W.
Tuchman (The New Yorker, 1986)
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
Patricia Hamilton
Ritchie Elementary
New Baltimore, VA
phamilton@fcps1.org
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