Public Library Quotes

• I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture, and our concern for the future, can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.

  Carl Sagan

  Thinking, Civilization, Support

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.307, Ballantine Books

  10 Copy quote

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• The public library is where place and possibility meet.

  Stuart Dybek

  Library, Possibility

  45 Copy quote

• Google can bring you back 100,000 answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one.

  Neil Gaiman

  Book, Reading, Thought Provoking

  67 Copy quote

• Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.

  Walter Cronkite

  Inspirational, Education, Ignorant

  "The price of libraries is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation" by Abigail Tarttelin, www.theguardian.com. September 12, 2013.

  91 Copy quote

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• In my view, investing in public libraries is an investment in the nation's future.

  Bill Gates

  Views, Library, Investing

  26 Copy quote

• There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.

  Andrew Carnegie

  Office, Democracy, Library

  21 Copy quote

• We must not think of learning as only what happens in schools. It is an extended part of life. The most readily available resource for all of life is our public library system.

  David McCullough

  School, Thinking, Library

  7 Copy quote

• The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species.

  Carl Sagan

  Teacher, Inspire, Mind

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.307, Ballantine Books

  21 Copy quote

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• Libraries should be open to all - except the censor.

  John F. Kennedy

  Library, Censorship In Books, Should

  Saturday Review, p. 44, October 29, 1960.

  18 Copy quote

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• The library is the temple of learning.

  Carl T. Rowan

  Library, Temples, Libraries And Librarians

  8 Copy quote

• The public library is more than a repository of books. It's a mysterious, wondrous place with the power to change lives.

  Elizabeth Taylor

  Life Changing, Book, Library

  9 Copy quote

• I have always had a special affinity for libraries and librarians, for the most obvious reasons. I love books. (One of my first Jobs was shelving books at a branch of the Chicago Public Library.) Libraries are a pillar of any society. I believe our lack of attention to funding and caring for them properly in the United States has a direct bearing on problems of literacy, productivity, and our inability to compete in today's world. Libraries are everyman's free university.

  John Jakes

  Jobs, Believe, Book

  8 Copy quote

• The library is the temple of learning, and learning has liberated more people than all the wars in history.

  Carl T. Rowan

  Education, War, Book

  54 Copy quote

• I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it's better than college. People should educate themselves - you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I'd written a thousand stories.

  Ray Bradbury

  Education, Book, College

  24 Copy quote

• I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it's better than college.

  Ray Bradbury

  Education, College, Years

  10 Copy quote

• A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life.

  Norman Cousins

  Reading, Book, Ideas

  Norman Cousins (1967). “Present Tense; an American Editor's Odyssey”

  66 Copy quote

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• All you need in life is truth and beauty and you can find both at the Public Library.

  Studs Terkel

  Library, Needs, Life Is

  14 Copy quote

• No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library; for who can see the wall crowded on every side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious meditations and accurate inquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wall, Writing, Vanity

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1837). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq”, p.167

  7 Copy quote

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• 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

  Book, Reflection, Greatness

  45 Copy quote

• If you file your waste-paper basket for fifty years, you have a public library.

  Tony Benn

  Years, Library, Paper

  8 Copy quote

• While on the subject of burning books, I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and destroyed records rather than have to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles. So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the media. The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Country, Book, Names

  "A Man Without a Country". Book by Kurt Vonnegut (pp. 102-103), September 15, 2005.

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• 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

  Wall, School, Library

  59 Copy quote

• If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries.

  John F. Kennedy

  Wise, Strong, Book

  Saturday Review, p. 44, October 29, 1960.

  7 Copy quote

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• Libraries are the one American institution you shouldn't rip off.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Rip, Book, Library

  Barbara Kingsolver (2009). “Animal Dreams: A Novel”, p.34, Harper Collins

  7 Copy quote

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• Children have to have access to books, and a lot of children can't go to a store and buy a book. We need not only our public libraries to be funded properly and staffed properly, but our school libraries. Many children can't get to a public library, and the only library they have is a school library.

  Katherine Paterson

  Children, Book, School

  9 Copy quote