• Fabulous Quotes About Libraries

75 Fabulous Quotes About Libraries

Library Quotes

A few days ago, while writing a blog post about public libraries, I decided to use a few quotes referencing libraries.  Searching for the perfect library quote, I quickly became distracted from all of the great quotes I found on Pinterest!

When you have an institution, service and resource as incredible as a library, it only makes sense that lots of powerful and famous people will speak of their importance.  Personally, I’ve been around libraries my entire life, both working in a library in my younger days as a volunteer and professionally serving as a subscription vendor for libraries.  I can’t imagine a better group of people to work with than librarians.

As I began to collect these library quotes and sayings, it only made sense to compose a post to share them!

1) A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life. ~Henry Ward Beecher
2) When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself. ~Isaac Asimov
3) What is more important in a library than anything else – than everything else – is the fact that it exists. ~Archibald MacLeish

Popular Library Quotes

5) The love of libraries, like most loves, must be learned. ~Alberto Manguel
6) Librarian is a service occupation. Gas station attendant of the mind. ~Richard Powers
7) When the going gets tough, the tough get a librarian. ~Joan Bauer

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11) Librarians are the secret masters of the world. They control information. Don’t ever piss one off. ~Spider Robinson
12) Having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card. ~Marc Brown
13) I always felt, if I can get to a library, I’ll be okay.  ~Maya Angelou

Famous Library Quotes

15) Libraries are our friends. ~Neil Gaiman
16)Librarians have always been among the most thoughtful and helpful people. They are teachers without a classroom. ~Willard Scott
17)Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library. The only entrance requirement is interest. ~Lady Bird Johnson

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21) Being a writer in a library is rather like being a eunuch in a harem. ~John Braine
22) A great library is one nobody notices because it is always there, and always has what people need. ~Vicki Myron
23) Libraries allow children to ask questions about the world and find the answers. And the wonderful thing is that once a child learns to use a library, the doors to learning are always open. ~Laura Bush

Quotes For Library Walls

quotes about libraries

25) Everything you need for better future and success has already been written. And guess what? All you have to do is go to the library. ~Henri Frederic Amiel

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29) With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one – but no one at all – can tell you what to read and when and how. ~Doris Lessing
30) If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library? ~Lily Tomlin
31) Librarians are almost always very helpful and often almost absurdly knowledgeable. Their skills are probably very underestimated and largely underemployed. ~Charles Medawar

quotes for library walls

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36) Shout for libraries. Shout for the young readers who use them. ~Patrick Ness
37) If I was a book, I would like to be a library book, so I would be taken home by all different sorts of kids. ~Cornelia Funke
38) Libraries store the energy that fuels the imagination. They open up windows to the world and inspire us to explore and achieve, and contribute to improving our quality of life. ~Sidney Sheldon

39) I ransack public libraries, and find them full of sunk treasure. ~Virginia Woolf
40) A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life. ~Norman Cousins
41) Libraries were full of ideas – perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons. ~Sarah J. Maas

Famous Library Quote by Peter Golkin

44) I’m really a library man, or second-hand book man. ~John le Carre
45) The library card is a passport to wonders and miracles, glimpses into other lives, religions, experiences, the hopes and dreams and strivings of ALL human beings, and it is this passport that opens our eyes and hearts to the world beyond our front doors, that is one of our best hopes against tyranny, xenophobia, hopelessness, despair, anarchy, and ignorance. ~Libba Bray
46) People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned. ~Saul Bellow

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50) In the nonstop tsunami of global information, librarians provide us with floaties and teach us to swim. ~Linton Weeks
51) The truth is libraries are raucous clubhouses for free speech, controversy and community. ~Paula Poundstone
52) The most important asset of any library goes home at night – the library staff. ~Timothy Healy

Popular Library Quotes

54) Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future. ~Ray Bradbury
55) Bad libraries build collections, good libraries build services, great libraries build communities. ~R. David Lankes
56) A great library doesn’t have to be big or beautiful. It doesn’t have to have the best facilities or the most efficient staff or the most users. A great library provides. It is enmeshed in the life of a community in a way that makes it indispensable. ~Vicki Myron

Library Quote Images

More library quote images
library quote for walls

60) The love of libraries, like most loves, must be learned. ~Alberto Manguel
61) You don’t spend your life hanging around books without learning a thing or two. ~Lemony Snicket
62) There was the smell of old books, a smell that has a way of making all libraries seem the same. Some say that smell is asbestos.  ~Scott Douglas

63) To ask why we need libraries at all, when there is so much information available elsewhere, is about as sensible as asking if roadmaps are necessary now that there are so very many roads. ~Jon Bing
64) I fall in love with any girl who smells of library paste. ~Charles M Schulz
65) You must live feverishly in a library. Colleges are not going to do any good unless you are raised and live in a library everyday of your life. ~Ray Bradbury

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69) I don’t think people realize how vital libraries are or what a colossal danger it would be if we were to lose any more. Having had a truncated school life myself, all of my education from the age of 17 has been self-taught. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it wasn’t for the opportunities the library gave me. ~Alan Moore
70) Public libraries have been a mainstay of my life. They represent an individual’s right to acquire knowledge; they are the sinews that bind civilized societies the world over. Without libraries, I would be a pauper, intellectually and spiritually. ~James A Michener
71) We’ll always need printed books that don’t mutate the way digital books do; we’ll always need places to display books, auditoriums for book talks, circles for story time; we’ll always need brick-and-mortar libraries. ~Marilyn Johnson

72) Libraries are the future of reading. When the economy is down, we need to make it easier for people to buy and read books for free, not harder. It is stupid to sacrifice tomorrow’s book buyers for today’s dollars, especially when it’s obvious that the source in question doesn’t have any more dollars to give you. ~Courtney Milan
73) Most people either love or hate old libraries. To some, a room like this–dim, high-ceilinged, dusty, smelling of old paper and crumbling leather–would be oppressive, a place to flee from in search of sun and air. To others, like me, it was a wonderful cave filled with unimaginable treasures and unexpected treats. I always found myself inhaling deeply when I entered the stacks, as if trying to absorb part of them into my bloodstream. ~Sheila Connolly
74) The idea of a library full of books, the books full of knowledge, fills me with fear and love and courage and endless wonder. ~Elizabeth McCracken

Library Quotes Pins & Board

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About Rivistas Subscription Services

Rivistas Subscription Services is a full service subscription vendor serving public and school libraries.  Whether you have a single branch library or many locations, Rivistas will help you manage your periodical order with finesse.  If you’re looking for attention to detail, a friendly service and a simple renewal process, Rivistas Subscription Services is for you!

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2018-02-13T09:16:15+00:00 February 13th, 2018|

About the Author:

Bonnie is a guy who is crazy about magazines. He sold his first subscription to Field & Stream at age 12 and has been practically selling magazines ever since. Working in the magazine industry since college, Bonnie has worked in school library sales, public library sales, publisher relations, customer service – all surrounding the magazine world. Bonnie is one of the partners of Rivistas and handles the PR & Marketing side of things.

7 Comments

  1. Helen February 13 at 3:53 pm - Reply

    Thank you!

    • Bonnie Cribbs February 13 at 4:10 pm - Reply

      It’s our pleasure! I’m glad you enjoyed it!

  2. Joan Young February 15 at 2:27 pm - Reply

    Love it! We post a new quote each month about books and/or libraries, so I can really use these.

    • Bonnie Cribbs February 15 at 5:30 pm - Reply

      That’s great! I’m glad you’ll be able to use these. Hope you enjoyed the prints too! Thanks for taking the time to let us know they resonated with you.

  3. Ann Duncan March 1 at 10:10 pm - Reply

    Bonnie, I’ve always felt at home in a library. To me a library is a comforting yet stimulating place to pursue whatever area of interest I want to learn about on that particular visit.

    • Bonnie Cribbs March 1 at 10:42 pm - Reply

      Most definitely! I’ve loved getting to work and meet in libraries throughout my career – I love the creativity and architecture found in libraries.

  4. Caroline September 24 at 7:08 pm - Reply

    Hello Bonnie,

    I enjoyed your collection of quotes and the beautiful images that accompany it. Are the images embedded in the article copyrighted? Did you create them? If so, may I have permission to share a few of the images on my library’s Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/missoulapubliclibrary/] with an attribution statement acknowledging the creator? I would also include a link back to your article.

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