“Bedrooms and libraries ought to have an eastern exposure, because their purposes require the morning light, and also because books in such libraries will not decay.”

—  Vitruvius , book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book VI, Chapter IV, Sec. 1

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Vitruvius photo
Vitruvius 203
Roman writer, architect and engineer -80–-15 BC

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“Once early in the morning, at two or three in the morning, when the master was asleep, the books in the library began to quarrel with each other as to which was the king of the library. The dictionary contended quite angrily that he was the master of the library because without words there would be no communication at all. The book of science argued stridently that he was the master of the library for without science there would have been no printing press or any of the other wonders of the world. The book of poetry claimed that he was the king, the master of the library, because he gave surcease and calm to his master when he was troubled. The books of philosophy, the economic books, all put in their claims, and the clamor was great and the noise at its height when a small low voice was heard from an old brown book lying in the center of the table and the voice said "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."”

Louis Nizer (1902–1994) American lawyer

And all of the noise and the clamor in the library ceased, and there was a hush in the library, for all of the books knew who the real master of the library was.
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Vitruvius photo

“There will… be natural propriety in using an eastern light for bedrooms and libraries, a western light in winter for baths and winter apartments, and a northern light for picture galleries and other places in which a steady light is needed; for that quarter of the sky grows neither light nor dark with the course of the sun, but remains steady and unshifting all day long.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book I, Chapter II, Sec. 7

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“It is like having a book out from the library.
It is like constantly having a book out from the library.”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

Source: Self-Help

Stanisław Lem photo

“The book does not contain “everything about the human being,” because that is impossible. The largest libraries in the world do not contain “everything.””

Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) Polish science fiction author

The quantity of anthropological data discovered by scientists now exceeds any individual’s ability to assimilate it. The division of labor, including intellectual labor, begun thirty thousand years ago in the Paleolithic, has become an irreversible phenomenon, and there is nothing that can be done about it. Like it or not, we have placed our destiny in the hands of the experts. A politician is, after all, a kind of expert, if self-styled. Even the fact that competent experts must serve under politicians of mediocre intelligence and little foresight is a problem that we are stuck with, because the experts themselves cannot agree on any major world issue. A logocracy of quarreling experts might be no better than the rule of the mediocrities to which we are subject. The declining intellectual quality of political leadership is the result of the growing complexity of the world. Since no one, be he endowed with the highest wisdom, can grasp it in its entirety, it is those who are least bothered by this who strive for power.
One Human Minute (1986)

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“Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. LIX
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“Books read in a public library never have the same flavour as books read in the attic or the kitchen.”

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Private Reading, p. 152.
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“Human beings can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.”

Saul Bellow book Him with His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories

"Him with His Foot in His Mouth," from Him with His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories (1984) [Penguin Classics, 1998, ISBN 0-141-18023-4], p. 11
General sources

Sydney Smith quote: “He was a one-book man. Some men have only one book in them; others, a library.”
Sydney Smith photo

“He was a one-book man. Some men have only one book in them; others, a library.”

Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman

Vol. I, ch. 11
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“There are many horrible sights in the multiverse. Somehow, though, to a soul attuned to the subtle rhythms of a library, there are few worse sights than a hole where a book ought to be.
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Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!

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