Library Of Alexandria Quotes

The Library of Alexandria?" I ask. "Didn't that burn down?"
Mrs Philipoulus scoffs. "Damn fool Hypatia. Athena tried to convince her to install a sprinkler system. But no-o-o, no one was going to tell the librarianatrix how to run her library. ~ Tera Lynn Childs

THOMASINA:
But then the Egyptian noodle made carnal embrace with the enemy who burned the great library of Alexandria without so much as a fine for all that is overdue! ~ Tom Stoppard

The existence of any library, even mine, allows readers a sense of what their craft is truly about, a craft that struggles against the stringencies of time by bringing fragments of the past into their present. It grants them a glimpse, however secret or distant, into the minds of other human beings, and allows them a certain knowledge of their own condition through the stories stored here for their perusal. Above all, it tells readers that their craft consist of the power to remember, actively, through the prompt of the page, selected moments of the human experience. This was the great practice established by the Library of Alexandria. ~ Alberto Manguel

How DARE you and the rest of your barbarians set fire to my library? Play conqueror all you want, Mighty Caesar! Rape, murder, pillage thousands, even millions of human beings! But neither you nor any other barbarian has the right to destroy one human thought! ~ William Shakespeare

Merlin had, according to legend, created the White Council of Wizards from the chaos of the fall of the Roman Empire. He plunged into the flames of the burning Library of Alexandria to save the most critical texts, helped engineer the Catholic Church as a vessel to preserve knowledge and culture during Europe's Dark Ages, and leapt tall cathedrals in a single bound. ~ Jim Butcher

You know you're a history fan when you still get upset thinking about the library of Alexandria ~ Somewhere On The Internet

When I think of the library of Alexandria and of the fact that, although it burnt down, people continue to sort the letters of the alphabet according to that tradition, then that makes certain expressions of modernity, even of interventions on the textual level, possible. ~ Alexander Kluge

To all those who face change without fear. Go forward. To the ever-transforming glory of the public library, without which we would all be diminished. No one with a book is ever alone, even in the darkest moments. We are all book lovers. And we all chase the Great Library of Alexandria, one book at a time. ~ Rachel Caine

I'm up for the Julius Caesar Author of the Year Award this year. I'm tremendously proud, considering Caesar is the guy who burned down the Library of Alexandria. ~ Jarod Kintz

Like evolution itself, there have been rapid advances and crippling setbacks along the way. If the Library of Alexandria had never been burned to the ground it is possible to imagine that we would have built upon the achievements of the ancient Greeks to greater and earlier effect, and therefore it could have been in the time of a Cardano or a Newton or a Pascal that we first put a man on the moon. And we can only wonder where we would be. And at the planets we would have terraformed and colonised by the twenty-first century. Which medical advances we would have made. Maybe if there had been no dark ages, no switching off of the light, we would have found a way never to grow old, to never die. ~ Matt Haig

I love you," Kenneth said, with terrible dispassion, "but I would not burn the Library of Alexandria for you"; and Anita, drily sobbing, cried, "You son of a bitch. ~ Jincy Willett

Most historians agree that the decline of the Great Library of Alexandria was due to what endangers libraries of the present day--general indifference and bureaucratic neglect. ~ Library Of Congress

Eratosthenes was the director of the great library of Alexandria, the Centre of science and learning in the ancient world. Aristotle had argued that humanity was divided into Greeks and everybody else, whom he called barbarians and that the Greeks should keep themselves racially pure. He thought it was fitting for the Greeks to enslave other peoples. But Erathosthenes criticized Aristotle for his blind chauvinism, he believed there was good and bad in every nation. ~ Carl Sagan

The opportunity before all of us is living up to the dream of the Library of Alexandria and then taking it a step further - universal access to all knowledge. Interestingly, it is now technically doable ~ Brewster Kahle

Alexandria was "the single place on earth where all the knowledge in the entire world was gathered together -- every great play and poem, every book of physics and philosophy, the key to understanding ... simply everything," as the historians Justin Pollard and Howard Reid wrote. "Most of the knowledge of the first thousand years of Western civilization is missing. These were the books that formed the library of Alexandria. ~ Adam Rogers

At the time of Caliph Omar's invasion of Egypt, the Arab officer on duty in the destruction of the library of Alexandria used two stamps with which he marked the books. One said: 'Does not agree with the Koran - heretic, must be burned'. The other said: 'Agrees with the Koran - superfluous, must be burned'. ~ Nils Kjaer

We can roam the bloated stacks of the Library of Alexandria, where all imagination and knowledge are assembled; we can recognize in its destruction the warning that all we gather will be lost, but also that much of it can be collected again; we can learn from its splendid ambition that what was one man's experience can become, through the alchemy of words, the experience of all, and how that experience, distilled once again into words, can serve each singular reader for some secret, singular purpose. ~ Alberto Manguel

Some of the best memories of my childhood that I have are the times that I played hooky from school so I could spend my days in the public library reading all the wonderful books at my disposal. ~ Woody Allen

This is your very own Kindle. No more borrowing mine. I swear, Sarah, I opened it the other day and there was a naked man on the cover of nearly every book in my library. ~ Aly Martinez

HE didn't realize she was his everything until he gave her up for everything else. ~ Alexandria Heather

We must not cast away riches which can benefit our neighbor. Possessions were made to be possessed; goods are called goods because they do good, and they have been provided by God for the good of men: they are at hand and serve as the material, the instruments for a good use in the hand of him who knows how to use them. ~ Clement Of Alexandria

Alex was raised in this house along with his sisters, Katherine and Cecile. Their world was this house, with its mahogany globes the size of cantaloupes on the newel posts of every stairway, with wedding cake plaster on the ceilings, the wainscoting in the parlor and the library, and antique Persian carpets of red and purple and blue and gold on the wide plank floors, rugs knotted by little hands that had long since turned to dust. ~ Chase Novak

You should have just left me there."

He pulls out of the cemetery and onto the road. "Don't be so dramatic. Besides I told you I would never leave you. Just like you never left me."

"I think you've repaid that debt, Jackson Gray."

He shakes his head. "So quickly you forget our pact."

I put my foot on his dash and hold my hands in front of the vents. I still can't believe he's still rescuing me, years later. "Who could forget that. You were cowering on the floor of the library."

"I wasn't cowering."

"Okay. You were leaning down to get a book when large bullies materialized in front of you." I glance at him. "Is that better?"

He rolls his eyes. "No one's ever done something like that for me before. Even though I'd never admit a girl fought one of my battles."

I adjust the seat belt so it's tighter. "Get over it, Jackson Gray. I did what anyone would do."

"No one else would have stuck up for the new kid." He shrugs. "Is that the type of person you'd leave freezing in a cemetery?"

"You mean, you'd leave other people freezing in a cemetery?"

He sighs and nudges me in the shoulder. "Just shut up. ~ Erica M. Chapman

There were valuable first editions of books in the enormous library, most of them had been scribbled in by some idiot named Will H. ~ Cassandra Clare

I had always imagined Paradise as a kind of library. ~ J.L. Borges

A commune of library employees in Moscow created an "extreme" commune in which all clothing - including undergarments - was collectivized. According to Mehnert, if a communard preferred to wear his or her own underclothes "it would be characterized as a backslide into darkest capitalism; as prejudice originating in a petit-bourgeois ideology". ~ Richard Stites

Several years later, I received a letter from a young Englishman. He said that his father had died in the race, he knew not how or why. He had come across "Fastnet, Force 10" in a library and now he understood. Now, he wrote, it was time for him to sail his own Fastnet and finish the race that his father had completed. I sympathized; I was on a journey of my own as a student in divinity school. Yet I worried that he might be a little reckless out there, and suggested that there are other ways to honor the dead. I never again heard from him, but I do believe that - as in the Cornish tale about the water calling, "The hour is come, but not the man" - he joined the line of landsmen inevitably rushing down the hills to the sea. ~ John Rousmaniere

For the slow labor of realizing a potential gift the artist must retreat to those Bohemias, halfway between the slums and the library, where life is not counted by the clock and where the talented may be sure they will be ignored until that time, if it ever comes, when their gifts are viable enough to be set free and survive in the world. ~ Lewis Hyde

Seated in my library at night, and looking on the silent faces of my books, I am occasionally visited by a strange sense of the supernatural. ~ Alexander Smith

The Occupy movement did create spontaneously communities that taught people something: you can be in a supportive community of mutual aid and cooperation and develop your own health system and library and have open space for democratic discussion and participation. Communities like that are really important. ~ Noam Chomsky

Do good when you remember, and what you forget will be revealed to you; and do not surrender your mind to blind forgetfulness. ~ Syncletica Of Alexandria

I don't have that many days left," he said as we sat together in the library. "Why would I want to spend them on matters of drainage and overdue accounts? I must husband my hours and spend every one of them wisely. I regret that I didn't come to this realization until I reached fifty years of age. Calpurnia, you would do well to adopt such an attitude at an earlier age. Spend each of your allotted hours with care. ~ Jacqueline Kelly

Libraries are a hallmark of a civilized culture, and librarians represent that culture to all facets of society. ~ Janis Ian

Live from Babylon and Ur, From Athens and Alexandria and Rome, The voices of a thousand generations, Press us, Urge us on-. ~ Jack McDevitt

The national school is not a lecture hall or a library. Its schooling consists chiefly in experimental collective action aimed at the realization of a collective purpose. ~ Herbert Croly

Steep curving stone stairs led to a square library on the floor above. The 4,000 books in the library were mostly collected between 1710 and 1730. ... For a moment I was tempted to ask to be locked in. If I could skim ten books a day for a year, I would be able to get a sense of most of what David Hume might have read in 1730 -- an age when it still might just have been possible to read everything. ~ Rory Stewart

I went to the library. I looked at the magazines, at the pictures in them. One day I went to the bookshelves, and pulled out a book. It was Winesburg, Ohio.. I sat at a long mahogany table and began to read. All at once my world turned over. The sky fell in. The book held me. The tears came. My heart beat fast. I read until my eyes burned. I took the book home. I read another Anderson. I read and I read, and I was heartsick and lonely and in love with a book, many books, until it came naturally, and I sat there with a pencil and a long tablet, and tried to write, until I felt I could not go on because the words would not come as they did in Anderson, they only came like drops of blood from my heart. ~ John Fante

Life is like a library owned by the author. In it are a few books which he wrote himself, but most of them were written for him. ~ Harry Emerson Fosdick

The public library contains multitudes. And each person who visits contains multitudes as well. Each of us is a library of thoughts, memories, experiences, and odors. We adapt to one another to produce the human condition. ~ Josh Hanagarne

The library is the worst group of people ever assembled in history. They're mean, conniving, rude, and extremely well-read, which makes them dangerous. ~ Leslie Knope

Ereaders were a great convenience, but nothing could beat the smell of a library and old books. ~ Kate Evangelista

In the ideal public library, we are all readers of the "middling sort." Reading whatever we will, we fulfill a public function, preserving the sacrosanct space of inner thought that is our birthright. Assaults on that birthright in the forms of legislation, surveillance, and censorship ultimately are precisely as dangerous as our acquiescence in them. ~ Matthew Battles

Neither would you, had you grown up in a library of melodramatic romance novels. ~ Clementine Holzinger

A library always housed a trove of undiscovered friendships and forays, and a bookstore, a place where those temporary connections might become a constancy, must always hold a charm over any scholar's heart. ~ Michelle Franklin

The first grown-up book that I read on my own was a nineteenth-century edition of 'Tales from Livy' that I'd found in my grandfather's library. ~ Gore Vidal

Bingley prowled his library like a caged animal. The rain separating him from Jane imprisoned him in the house, creating his own personal hell. His sisters worked themselves into a frenzy over the ball, his brother-in-law consoled himself with increasing amounts of drink, and Darcy stared into space with a small smile on his lips. He wondered if the world had turned upside down if Darcy was the besotted man, smiling too much while he grumbled over every detail. ~ Rose Fairbanks

Ethan sidled next to me, a hand propped on the shelf. "Come here often?" he said. "Excuse me?" "I see you're here in this" - he gestured at the shelves - "library all alone. You must be a student here?" He traced a fingertip down the hollow of my throat, lifting goose bumps on my arms. Since my mind hardly worked when he did things like that, it took a moment for his words to register. Was he initiating a bout of role-playing ... about a library? "Ethan Sullivan," I marveled. "You have a library fantasy." He smiled slyly. "I have a doctoral-student-turned-vampire fantasy. ~ Chloe Neill

When we say we can pull resources away from libraries, from culture, from those parts of the education system that are not about utility, what we are really saying is that the life of the mind is unnecessary. ~ Jeanette Winterson

Library books were, I suddenly realized, promiscuous, ready to lie down in the arms of anyone who asked. Not like bookstore books, which married their purchasers, or were brokered for marriages to others. ~ Elizabeth McCracken

I continued down the hallway, past the library, with my eyes downcast, not wanting to talk to anyone. So immersed was I in my misery that I recoiled at the sound of a male voice emanating from just a few paces in front of me.
"I know feet are fascinating, Alera, but it's much more sensible to pay attention to where you're going."
Steldor stood outside the door to our quarters wearing a cocky and irritating grin, and for the thousandth time that day, I felt myself turning crimson. I stared at him, struggling for a witty rejoinder but unable to produce one.
"Did you want something, my lord?" I finally asked, forcing a smile that felt like a grimace.
"I simply wanted to see my beautiful wife," he said, countenance still smug, although his eyes had softened and I suspected the compliment was sincere. ~ Cayla Kluver

Half of my library are old books because I like seeing how people thought about their world at their time. So that I don't get bigheaded about something we just discovered and I can be humble about where we might go next. Because you can see who got stuff right and most of the people who got stuff wrong. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Any man who would walk five miles through the snow, barefoot, just to return a library book so he could save three cents - that's my kind of guy. ~ Jack Benny

The library was ... scattered with odd cushions and strange padded built-in furniture added a few years ago to placate the rioting students of the time, who could never seem to make up their minds whether they were angriest about Viet Nam, about being made to learn a foreign language, or about being made to sit at a hard wooden desk while they did it. The College, being unable to do anything about Viet Nam and unwilling to do anything about the foreign language requirement, had reformed the furniture in the library. ~ Pamela Dean