“Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs.”
-Zig Ziglar
"A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life."
-Henry Ward Beecher
“Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.”
-Walter Cronkite
"The library is the temple of learning, and learning has liberated more people than all the wars in history."
-Carl T. Rowan
"Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital."
-Thomas Jefferson
“To add a library to a house is to give that house a soul.”
-Cicero
“When I got [my] library card, that was when my life began.”
-Rita Mae Brown
"Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library. The only entrance requirement is interest."
-Lady Bird Johnson
"Everything you need for your better future and success has already been written. And guess what? It's all available. All you have to do is go to the library."
-Jim Rohn
"these Libraries have improved the general Conversation of Americans, made the common Tradesman and Farmers as intelligent as most Gentlemen from other Countries, and perhaps have contributed in some Degree to the Stand so generally made throughout the Colonies in Defence of their Privileges."
-Benjamin Franklin
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Regarding Ziglar's comment - my wife and I spent a couple of years visiting tag sales. Most of the time we were looking for books but she was also looking to pick up blue Delft. We did notice that when we compared those houses we considered middle class to those of the upper luxury class, there were fewer books in the wealthy homes. In one, we actually found an extensive library - but as we pulled the books off the shelves, we realized that none of them had been opened or read. Books as decorating accessories? We also always felt that we would gain some insight into the people who had inhabited the home - from travel, to language, to arts books, they were both a visual and literal guide to who these people were and what they valued. Books are an incredible mirror...and they tell some very interesting stories...
ReplyDeletePoint well taken. Whenever visiting, I find myself wandering over to look at what's on the book shelves. Be hard pressed to make any generalization, other than it is almost always interesting.
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