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

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

A great library contains the diary of the human race.

A great library contains the diary of the human race.

All round the room my silent servants wait,
My friends in every season, bright and dim.

All round the room my silent servants wait,
My friends in every season, bright and dim.

That place that does contain
My books, the best companions, is to me
A glorious court, where read more

That place that does contain
My books, the best companions, is to me
A glorious court, where hourly I converse
With the old sages and philosophers;
And sometimes, for variety, I confer
With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels;
Calling their victories, if unjustly got,
Unto a strict account, and, in my fancy,
Deface their ill-placed statues.

If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in a library.

If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in a library.

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?" She said if she told me, it read more

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?" She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose

A library implies an act of faith

A library implies an act of faith

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

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

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),