John Cotton Dana Quotes

The public library is a center of public happiness first, of public education next.

I am a public library

Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay.

I cannot imagine the type of sinister fiend who would be against the library. A library essentially says, 'Look, here is some free information that will enrich your life. Read it on your own time. I trust that you will bring it back when you are finished.' It might be the most civilized, forward-thinking institution in America. Perhaps the only one, in fact.

In our democratic society, the library stands for hope, for learning, for progress, for literacy, for self-improvement and for civic engagement. The library is a symbol of opportunity, citizenship, equality, freedom of speech and freedom of thought, and hence, is a symbol for democracy itself.

A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival.

The public library is the great equaliser.

The public library is the most dangerous place in town

Public libraries are the last vestige of public free space.

The library is central to our free society. It is a critical element in the free exchange of information at the heart of our democracy.

We may sit in our library and yet be in all quarters of the earth.

A completely free library is as rare as a truly free lunch.

A public library is the most democratic thing in the world. What can be found there has undone dictators and tyrants.

In my world there would be as many public libraries as there are Starbucks.

My alma mater is the Chicago Public Library.

Access to knowledge is the superb, the supreme act of truly great civilizations. Of all the institutions that purport to do this, free libraries stand virtually alone in accomplishing this mission.

There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.

On the other hand, the Internet is there to fill needs that people have for information and socialization. We get this sort of identification thing going on nowadays because it's a very fractious time. We live in a time of troubles.

One of my greatest sources of pride as president of the New York Public Library is the continuance of the library's open, free, and democratic posture, the fact that we are here for Everyman, that we are indeed Everyman's university, the place where the scholar who is not college-affiliated can come and work and feel at home.

A picture's worth a thousand words? A library card's worth millions.

A library is a place that is a repository of information and gives every citizen equal access to it.

Here was one place where I could find out who I was and what I was going to become. And that was the public library.

The free access to information is not a privilege, but a necessity for any free society. One of my favorite things to do as a young man was wander through the stacks of my hometown library. I'd just browse until I found something interesting. Libraries have definitely changed my life.

The librarian's mission should be, not like up to now, a mere handling of the book as an object, but rather a know how (mise au point) of the book as a vital function.

Knowledge was power, but a good librarian did not hoard the gift. She taught others how to find, where to look, how to see.