Melvil Dewey Quotes

To my thinking, a great librarian must have a clear head, a strong hand, and, above all, a great heart. And when I look into the future, I am inclined to think that most of the men who achieve this greatness will be women.

Reading is a mighty engine, beside which steam and electricity sink into insignificance.

The time was when a library was very like a museum and the librarian a mouser among dusty books. The time is when the library is a school and the librarian in the highest sense a teacher.

Women can endure pain with fortitude, and they can perform monotonous tasks with patience.

The eternal conflict of good and the best with bad and the worst is on.

Our great function is to inform or to inspire, or to please; to give to the public in the quickest and cheapest way information, inspiration, and recreation on the highest plane. If a better way than the books is found we should use it.

The librarian must be the librarian militant before he can be the librarian triumphant.