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

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

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

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.

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

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

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.

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),

Food for the soul.
[Lat., Nutrimentum spiritus.]

Food for the soul.
[Lat., Nutrimentum spiritus.]

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.

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.