If you have ever watched an artist constructing with bits of cold stone a beautiful living picture you know that he works faithful...ly and carefully on the pattern from the wrong side and while he is working every inequality, every tint a little too dull is apparent to him as his picture grows, but he works on and on. And even when he finishes at last and looks down at the completed pattern he is not discouraged to see here a little crevice and there a little roughness, an open seam here, a tiny patch there where the bit of marble was too small. Now he pours his cement over it and smoothes [sic] it into every seam, and with faith puts his work to dry. Next day the pattern is turned and the perfect whole is given to view, needing only the polishing of a loving hand to make it ready to slip in place. So we should work faithfully on our pattern, cement it together with ourselves, and polish it with human kindness; and lo! the work slips into place seemingly a perfect whole.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We should burn all libraries and allow to remain only that which everyone knows by heart. A beautiful age of the legend would then... begin.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In early days, I tried not to give librarians any trouble, which was where I made my primary mistake. Librarians like to be given ...trouble; they exist for it, they are geared to it. For the location of a mislaid volume, an uncatalogued item, your good librarian has a ferret's nose. Give her a scent and she jumps the leash, her eye bright with battle.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in ...the lumber room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Be a little careful about your library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be sure. But the real question is,... What it will do with you? You will come here and get books that will open your eyes, and your ears, and your curiosity, and turn you inside out or outside in.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have give...n, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books. Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the book-worm.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »