“A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life.”

No grace can save any man unless he helps himself.

Happiness is not the end of life: character is.

Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?

Nothing dies so hard, or rallies so often as intolerance.

The law is a battery, which protects all that is behind it, but sweeps with destruction all that is outside.

It is not work that kills men; it is worry. Work is healthy; you can hard put more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery, but the friction.

Repentance may begin instantly, but reformation often requires a sphere of years.

Joy is more divine than sorrow, for joy is bread and sorrow is medicine.

Ones best success comes after their greatest disappointments.

The thankful heart will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings.

No man is more cheated than the selfish man.

The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never excuses himself.

The Bible is God’s chart for you to steer by, to keep you from the bottom of the sea, and to show you where the harbor is, and how to reach it without running on rocks or bars.

A little library, growing every year, is an honorable part of a man’s history. It is a man’s duty to have books.

Repentance is another name for aspiration.

In the family, happiness is in the ratio in which each is serving the others, seeking one another’s good, and bearing one another’s burdens.

One of the most subversive institutions in the United States is the public library.

How we use the knowledge we gain determines our progress on earth, in space or on the moon. Your library is a storehouse for mind and spirit. Use it well.

A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.

I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.

I’ve always said, stuff the engagement ring! Just build me a really big library.

Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.

I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.

If past history was all that is needed to play the game of money, the richest people would be librarians.