John Bright

“In the houses of the humble a little library in my opinion is a most precious possession.”

“I would prefer to have one comfortable room well stocked with books to all you could give me in the way of decoration which the highest art could supply.”

“What is a great love of books? It is something like a personal introduction to the great and good men of all past times. Books, it is true, are silent as you see them on their shelves; but, silent as they are, when I enter a library I feel as if almost the dead were present, and I know if I put questions to these books they will answer me with all the faithfulness and fulness which has been left in them by the great men who have left the books with us.”