Every man should have a library. The works of the grandest masters of literature may now be procured at prices that place them within the reach almost of the very poorest, and we may all put Parnassian singing birds into our chambers to cheer us with the sweetness of their songs. – William E.A. Axon, October 1867

A public library is the most enduring of memorials, the trustiest monument for the preservation of an event or a name or an affection; for it, and it only, is respected by wars and revolutions, and survives them. – Mark Twain, 1894

A library is but the souls burying ground. It is a land of shadows. – Henry Ward Beecher

A word also as to the cost of carriage: This is at present so high, whether the means be mail or express, that we may properly set it down as the chief obstacle to the free development of inter-library loans. – William Warner Bishop, “Inter-Library Loans,” 1909