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.

A great library contains the diary of the human race.

A great library contains the diary of the human race.

Shelved around us lie
The mummied authors.

Shelved around us lie
The mummied authors.

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.

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.

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

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),

Some book there is that she desires to see.
Which is it, girl, of these? Open them, boy.
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Some book there is that she desires to see.
Which is it, girl, of these? Open them, boy.
But thou art deeper read and better skilled:
Come and take choice of all my library,
And so beguile thy sorrow, till the heavens
Reveal the damned contriver of this deed.

The medicine chest of the soul.

The medicine chest of the soul.