#libra

In the year of Christ 1571, at the age of thirty-eight, on the last day of February, anniversary of his birth, Michel de Montaigne, lon weary of the servitude of the court and of public employments, while still entire, retired to the bosom of the learned Virgins [Muses], where in calm and freedom from all cares he will spend what little remains of his life now more than half run out. If the fates permit, he will completethis abode, this sweet ancestral retreat; and he has consecrated it to his freedom, tranquility, and leisure. ↗

— Michel de Montaigne

#age

He was rather clumsy and shy and looked as if he'd spent the last ten years of his life locked up in a library - hardly the kind of man any girl your age dreams of ... ↗

— Carlos Ruiz Zafón

#dreams #library #shy #age

Library? That sounded reasonable. As my thoughts revolved around my days surrounded by books, something miraculous happened. My anger subsided. It ebbed away as the thoughts of books, pages, and comfort entered my head. ↗

— Rebecca Maizel

#vampires #anger

(about organizing books in his home library, and putting a book in the "Arts and Lit non-fiction section) I personally find that for domestic purposes, the Trivial Pursuit system works better than Dewey. ↗

— Nick Hornby

#home #libraries #organization #art

I love vast libraries; yet there is a doubt, If one be better with them or without, Unless he use them wisely, and, indeed, Knows the high art of what and how to read. ↗

— John Godfrey Saxe

#libraries #reading #art

Librarians are almost always very helpful and often almost absurdly knowledgeable. Their skills are probably underestimated and largely underemployed. ↗

— Charles Medawar

#business

Just as we may, through an appalled realization that we were unaware of what was going on in the mind of one we thought we knew, come to wonder how we ever know what another person is thinking or feeling, so too we may, having on some occasion wanted badly to understand and having clearly failed, come to wonder how we ever manage to understand, and how we know that we have succeeded. ↗

— Patrick Wilson

#communication #connections #inquiry #libraries #understanding

I like to imagine that, on the day after my last, my library and I will crumble together, so that even when I am no more I'll still be with my books. ↗

— Alberto Manguel

#death #library #death

Just like old librarians, old coins are often more valuable than they appear at face value. ↗

— Kate Klise

#librarians #death

There's a serendipity to real life that the Internet can't duplicate. Do you use the library? For anything? Well, sometimes you end up picking up the book next to the one you were looking for, and it's that book that changes your life. ↗

— Laura Lippman

#library-books #library-in-the-digital-age #age