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

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

Librarians are generals in the war on ignorance. – Author Unknown

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