On Libraries

On Libraries
“For a library was one of the very few things that had to be free; it incarnated freedom; it was where the mind was most free, where time ceases to be oppressive, where no book is penalised for being young or old, for the colour of its paper or its ink, where each has an equal voice, undisturbed by examinations of its precise beliefs, where no reader is accused of poking his noise into matters which do not concern him, where there are no secrets, where no promises are extracted, except to respect the right of everyone else, and of the books, to be there.”