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.
Denial of childhood and denial of freedom are the biggest sins which humankind has been committing and perpetuating for ages.
The great doctors all got their education off dirt pavements and poverty - not marble floors and foundations.
Children have to have access to books, and a lot of children can't go to a store and buy a book. We need not only our public libraries to be funded properly and staffed properly, but our school libraries. Many children can't get to a public library, and the only library they have is a school library.
My message to students is that if you want to become an entrepreneur and save the world, definitely don't skip college. But go to a school that you can afford. You'll be freed from the chains of debt and succeed on your own ambition and merit.
Ordinary people simply don't know what books mean to us, shut up here. Reading, learning, and the radio are our amusements.
I kept listening, kept going to see people, kept sitting in with people, kept listening to records. If I wanted to learn somebody's stuff, like with Clapton, when I wanted to learn how he was getting some of his sounds - which were real neat - I learned how to make the sounds with my mouth and then copied that with my guitar.
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