“To live among such excellent helps as our libraries afford, to have so many silent wise companions whenever we please.”

“In a great library, you get into society in the widest sense. . . . From that great crowd you can choose what companions you please, for in these silent gatherings . . . the highest is at the service of the lowest with a grand humility. In a library you become a true citizen of the world.”

“Prefer to be defeated in the presence of the wise than to excel among fools.”

“There is an ideal of excellence for any particular craft or occupation; similarly there must be an excellent that we can achieve as human beings. That is, we can live our lives as a whole in such a way that they can be judged not just as excellent in this respect or in that occupation, but as excellent, period. Only when we develop our truly human capacities sufficiently to achieve this human excellent will we have lives blessed with happiness.”

“Librarians have always been among the most thoughtful and helpful people. They are teachers without a classroom. No libraries, no progress.”

“The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man”