Public library Quote by Public Library Association

If you look back at history, [Dale ] Carnegie highlighted the need for libraries to be a place where everyone could go to read…

— Melinda Gates

What's success all about? What's philanthropy all about? Let's think of our legacy, following in the footsteps of some great Americans like the Carnegies…

— Norman Braman

He [Andrew Carnegie] wanted people to be able to lift themselves, to educate themselves, to train themselves. And there was no better way to…

— David Nasaw

“Libraries represent the sole contemporary American institution with the potential for making available a wide-ranging, genuinely diverse spectrum of opinions, cultural expressions, and ideas…

— Sanford Berman

“Libraries are innately subversive institutions, born of the radical notion that every member of society deserves free, high-quality access to knowledge and culture.”

— Matt Finch

Alliances are crucial to success in the political sphere. However, if we are to approach other organizations to propose alliances for the public good,…

— Arthur Curley

Public libraries are the sole community centers left in America. The degree to which a branch of the local library is connected to the…

— Russell Banks

“I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture,…

— Isaac Asimov

“That the public library is a part of the educational system should never be lost sight of in the work of establishing it, or…

— John Cotton Dana

I think the public library system is one of the most amazing American institutions. Free for everybody. If you ever get the blues about…

— David McCullough

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…

— Vartan Gregorian

“More than a building that houses books and data, the library has always been a window to a larger world--a place where we've always…

— Barack Obama