The only condition a library asks its users to honor is to do justice to their own imagination, their own curiosity and their own thirst for knowledge, and in the process, to achieve their own independence of mind and spirit.
Interpretation
Libraries encourage individuals to explore their imagination and pursue knowledge for independence.
This quote emphasizes the role of libraries in cultivating a sense of curiosity and imagination among their users. By honoring their own thirst for knowledge, individuals can achieve intellectual and spiritual independence, which is essential for personal growth and enlightenment.
In practice
During a keynote speech at a literacy conference, to emphasize the importance of libraries in fostering imagination.
That is the future, and it is probably nearer than we think. But our primary problem as universities is not engineering that future. We must rise above the obsession with quantity of information and speed of transmission, and recognize that the key issue for us is our ability to organize this information once it has been amassed - to assimilate it, find meaning in it, and assure its survival for use by generations to come.
The library is not only a diary of the human race, but marks an act of faith in the continuity of humanity.
Hunger, inadequate medical care, poor housing, and inferior schools are enemies of the sense of wonder. It is easier and less expensive in the long run to prevent a loss of imagination by providing adequate nutrition, housing, medical care, and schooling than it is to try to restore that loss.
As always, a lot of bad books will be published. Some good books will be published, and you have to seek them out.
For fifteen years, I was a teacher of youth. They were years out of the fullness and bloom of my younger manhood. They were years mingled of half breathless work, of anxious self-questionings, of planning and replanning, of disillusion, or mounting wonder.
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
Knowledge is the intellectual manipulation of carefully verified observations.
One can learn anything, anything at all, I thought, if provided by a gifted and passionate teacher.
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