LIBRARIAN QUOTATIONS
A COLLECTION OF LIBRARIAN QUOTATIONS
LIBRARY (SHERIDAN) TO QUOTATION
Sheridan
A circulating library in a town is an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge.
The Rivals
Act 1, secne 2
Siculus, Diodorus
[Library] A sanatorium for the mind.
History
Book I, Chapter 49
Smith, Alexander
I go into my library, and all history rolls before me. I breathe the morning air of the world while the scent of Eden's roses yet llingered in it....I see the pyramids building; I hear the shoutings of the armies of Alexander....I sit as in a theatre--the stage is time, the play is the play of the world.
Dreamthorp
Books and Gardens
Twain, Mark
But the truth is, that when a Library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me.
Letter to Mrs. F. G. Whitmore, 2/7/1907
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.
Letter to the Millicent [Rogers] Library, 2/22/1894
LITERATURE
Capek, Karel
Classical literature is the literature of which we do not expect anything new. That is why we appreciate it so highly, and why we leave it unread. On the other hand we read modern literature as we read newspapers; we want it to tell us something new; as soon as it has told us we throw it aside like yesterday's paper. If we were to let it twll its tale three times over, we might find out that there is in it which is unchanging. But that is a luxury we leave to children.
Intimate Things
Griffin, Julius
The reader of literature learns that it is not merely the having of problems that is important, but rather what a person does with these problems. It is hoped that he will be able to see that there are more efficient and more satisfying ways of coping with problems in contrast to neurotic or psychotic methods that leave the individual with no real fulfillment. Literature also offers a person an opportunity for identification with a good hero, and the chance to pattern oneself after a person who has dealt with reality effectively.
Quote
February 12, 1967 (p. 128)
Hoffmeister, Adolf
Literature is like a river which crosses the landscape of life, reflecting the sky, the banks, the bridges, the boats and fishermen.
UNESCO Courier
Around 1967
Hubbard, Elbert
LITERATURE: The art of saying a thing by saying something else just as good.
The Roycroft Dictionary (p. 87)
Pater, Walter
...The principle, axiomatic in literature: that to know when one's self is interested, is the first consideration of interesting other people.
Marius the Epicurean
Twain, Mark
It makes one hope and believe that a day will come when, in the eye of the law, literary property will be as sacred as whiskey, or any other of the necessaries of life. It grieves me to think how far more profound and reverent a respect the law would have for literature if a body could only get drunk on it.
Dinner speech 12/8/1881
Creed and opinion change with time, and their symbols perish; but Literature and its temples are
sacred to all creeds and inviolate.
Letter to the Millicent [Rogers] Library, 2/22/1894
My works are like water. The works of the great masters are like wine. But everyone drinks water.
Notebook, 1885
High and fine literature is wine, and mine is only water; but everybody likes water.
Letter to W. D. Howells, 2/15/1887
Delicacy - a sad, sad false delicacy - robs literature of the two best things among its belongings:
Family-circle narratives & obscene stories.
Letter to W. D. Howells, 9/19/1877
I have never tried, in even one single little instance, to help cultivate the cultivated classes. I was not
equipped for it either by native gifts or training. And I never had any ambition in that direction, but
always hunted for bigger game- the masses. I have seldom deliberately tried to instruct them, but I
have done my best to entertain them, for they can get instruction elsewhere.
Mark Twain, a Biography
Comedy keeps the heart sweet; but we all know that there is wholesome refreshment for both mind
and heart in an occasional climb among the pomps of the intellectual snow-summits built by
Shakespeare and those others.
About Play-Acting
...I could not consent to deliver judgment upon any one's manuscript, because an individual's verdict
[is] worthless...The great public [is] the only tribunal competent to sit in judgment upon a literary
effort.
Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut
Clemens, Clara
No man has an appreciation so various that his judgment is good upon all varieties of literary work.
My Father Mark Twain
Johnson, Mark
In literature imitations do not imitate.
More Maxims of Mark Johnson
Walker, Edith V.
Literature does much more for children than affect their reading achievement. Literature contributes to their understanding of themselves and of the world around them.
Baltimore Bulletin of Education
Literature and Reading Achievement
OBSCENITY
Twain, Mark
Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity- these are strictly confined to man; he invented them. Among the
higher animals there is no trace of them.
The Lowest Animal essay
PLAGIARISM
Twain, Mark
...all our phrasings are spiritualized shadows cast multitudinously from our readings...
Mark Twain's Autobiography
I know one thing- that a certain amount of pride always goes along with a teaspoonful of brains, and
that this pride protects a man from deliberately stealing other people's ideas. That is what a
teaspoonful of brains will do for a man- and admirers had often told me I had nearly a basketful-
though they were rather reserved as to the size of the basket.
Unconscious Plagiarism speech
PUBLISHER
Twain, Mark
All publishers are Columbuses. The successful author is their America. The reflection that they-like Columbus-didn't discover what they expected to discover, and didn't discover what they started out to discover, doesn't trouble them. All they remember is that they discovered America; they forget that they started out to discover some patch or corner of India.
Eruption
Robbery of a publisher - I said that if he regarded that as a crime it was because his education was limited. I said it was not a crime and was always rewarded in heaven with two halos. Would be, if itever happened.
Eruption
QUOTATION
Twain, Mark
It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive.
Following the Equator
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