Library Update: quotes archive

The Library Update is emailed each week to subscribers. Each issue contains an interesting or humourous quote. All the quotes used since 2000 are listed here. Subscribe to the Library Update.

Quotes 2003

no.50
Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. - William Arthur Ward, college administrator, writer (1921-1994)
no.49
I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. - Michelangelo Buonarroti, sculptor, painter, architect, and poet (1475-1564)
no.48
One can pay back the loan of gold, but one dies forever in debt to those who are kind. - Malayan Proverb
no.47
To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations--such is a pleasure beyond compare. - Kenko Yoshida, essayist (1283-1352)
no.46
A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man's brow. - Ovid, Roman poet, (43BC - c.17AD)
no.45
As a general rule, librarians are a kick in the pants socially, often full of good humor, progressive, and naturally, well read. They tend to be generalists who know so much about so many things that they are quite the opposite of the boring old poops they have been made out to be. Most of them are full of life, some even full of the devil. - Bill Hall, editorial page editor, Lewiston (Idaho) Tribune, Sept. 9, 2001.
no.44
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former. - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
no.43
In the nonstop tsunami of global information, librarians provide us with floaties and teach us how to swim. - Linton Weeks, Washington Post, Jan. 13, 2001.
no.42
In early days, I tried not to give librarians any trouble, which was where I made my primary mistake. Librarians like to be given trouble; they exist for it, they are geared to it. For the location of a mislaid volume, an uncatalogued item, your good librarian has a ferret's nose. Give her a scent and she jumps the leash, her eye bright with battle. - Catherine Drinker Bowen. From: Adventures of a Biographer, 1959
no.41
The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all. - Voltaire, philosopher and writer (1694-1778)
no.40
When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other. - Chinese proverb
no.39
The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself. - Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)
no.38
You are never too old to be what you might have been. - George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), novelist (1819-1880)
no.37
A true measure of your worth includes all the benefits others have gained from your successes. - Cullen Hightower, salesman and writer (1923- )
no.36
The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues. - Rene Descartes, philosopher and mathematician (1596-1650)
no.35
The only gift is giving to the poor; All else is exchange. - Thiruvalluvar, poet (c. 30 BCE)
no.34
Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission. - Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat, author, and lecturer (1884-1962)
no.33
What you get out depends on what you put in; and as the grandest mill in the world will not extract wheat-flour from peascods, so pages of formulae will not get a definite result out of loose data. - Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist and writer (1825-1895)
no.32
Where is the wisdom we have lost to knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost to information? - T.S. Eliot, poet and critic (1888-1965)
no.30
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. - William Shakespeare, playwright and poet (1564-1616)
no.31
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. - Arthur Conan Doyle, physician and writer (1859-1930)
no.29
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)
no.28
The great tragedy of science -- the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact. - Thomas Huxley, biologist and writer (1825-1895)
no.27
The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself. - Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)
no.26
There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who believe themselves sinners; the sinners who believe themselves righteous. - Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662)
no.25
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. - Steven Wright
no.24
You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. - Franklin P. Jones, author (1887-1929)
no.23
He who has imagination without learning has wings and no feet. - Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)
no.22
Drama is life with the dull bits cut out. - Alfred Hitchcock, film-maker (1899-1980)
no.21
Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they're going to catch you in next. - Franklin P. Jones, author (1887-1929)
no.20
An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision. - James McNeill Whistler, painter (1834-1903)
no.19
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good. - Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)
no.18
Try to learn something about everything and everything about something. - Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist (1825-1895)
no.17
I don't need time. What I need is a deadline. - Duke Ellington, jazz pianist, composer, and conductor (1899-1974)
no.16
Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop. - Ovid, poet (43BCE - CE 17)
no.15
Any fine morning, a power saw can fell a tree that took a thousand years to grow. - Edwin Way Teale, naturalist and author (1899-1980)
no.14
You think your pains and heartbreaks are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who have ever been alive. - James Baldwin, writer (1924-1987)
no.13
It's splendid to be a great writer, to put men into the frying pan of your imagination and make them pop like chestnuts. - Gustave Flaubert, French novelist, letter, 1851
no.12
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction. - Albert Einstein.
no.11
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility: Humility is endless. - T.S Eliot, poet (1888-1965)
no.10
Only one thing is impossible for God: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet - Mark Twain
no.9
A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives the rose. - Chinese proverb
no.8
Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind. - Marston Bates, zoologist, author (1906-1974).
no.7
There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other. - Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)
no.6
Swords and guns have no eyes. - Chinese proverb
no.5
When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice. - William James, psychologist (1842-1910)
no.4
The secret of being a bore ... is to tell everything. - Voltaire, author and philosopher (1694-1778)
no.3
We believe that the permanent, archival record of scientific research and ideas should neither be owned nor controlled by publishers, but should belong to the public, and should be made freely available. We support the establishment of international online public libraries of science that contain the complete text of all published scientific articles in searchable and interlinked formats. - Public Library of Science
no.2
To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to. - Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)
no.1
No one has ever become poor by giving. - Anne Frank, Holocaust diarist (1929-1945)

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