I love vast libraries; yet there is a doubt,
If one be better with them or without,--
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I love vast libraries; yet there is a doubt,
If one be better with them or without,--
Unless he use them wisely, and, indeed,
Knows the high art of what and how to read.

What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all
the souls of all read more

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. I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves,
their winding-sheets. I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem
to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage; and the odor of
their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom
of those sciential apples which grew amid the happy orchard.
- Charles Lamb (used pseudonym Elia),

Thou can'st not die. Here thou art more than safe
Where every book is thy epitaph.

Thou can'st not die. Here thou art more than safe
Where every book is thy epitaph.

It is a vanity to persuade the world one hath much learning, by
getting a great library.

It is a vanity to persuade the world one hath much learning, by
getting a great library.

The medicine chest of the soul.

The medicine chest of the soul.

To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.

To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.

'Tis well to borrow from the good and the great;
'Tis wise to learn: 'tis God-like to create!

'Tis well to borrow from the good and the great;
'Tis wise to learn: 'tis God-like to create!

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

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

The colleges, while they provide us with libraries, furnish no professors of books; and I think no chair is so read more

The colleges, while they provide us with libraries, furnish no professors of books; and I think no chair is so much needed.