The richest minds need not large libraries.

The richest minds need not large libraries.

A circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of
diabolical knowledge.

A circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of
diabolical knowledge.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were
only the history of pinheads.

Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were
only the history of pinheads.

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),