My experience with public libraries is that the first volume of the book I inquire for is out, unless I happen to want the second, when that is out. – Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Poet at the Breakfast Table

Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, 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. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

My books are very few, but then the world is before me – a library open to all – from which poverty of purse cannot exclude me – in which the meanest and most paltry volume is sure to furnish something to amuse, if not to instruct and improve. – Joseph Howe, 1824