Walls of Words

Entry / 1st Floor glass panels

• There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration. ~Andrew Carnegie

Circulation / 1st Floor glass panels

• We read to know we are not alone. ~C. S. Lewis
• None is poor, save him that lacks Knowledge. ~The Talmud
• Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future. ~Ray Bradbury
• A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life. ~Henry Ward Beecher
• Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimension. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes
• Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have. ~Margaret Mead

Youth / 1st Floor glass panels

• A book is like a garden carried in the pocket. ~Chinese proverb
• The more that you read, the more things you’ll know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go. ~Dr. Seuss
• It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. ~E.E. Cummings
• Books may well be the only true magic. ~Alice Hoffman
• Believe in your dreams. ~Georgia O’Keefe
• The time is always right to do what is right. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Stairway / 2nd Floor glass panels

• The current definitive answer to almost any question can be found within the four walls of most libraries. ~Arthur Ashe
• I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it. ~Voltaire
• A democratic society depends upon an informed and educated citizenry. ~Thomas Jefferson
• Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance. ~Carl Sandburg
• It’s better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness. ~Confucius
• I believe that we should all know each other, we human carriers of so many pleasurable differences. ~Gwendolyn Brooks

Periodicals / 2nd Floor glass panels

• I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. ~Maya Angelou
• Education is the best provision for the journey to old age. ~Aristotle
• Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers. ~Charles W. Eliot
• Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves. ~Abraham Lincoln
• The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. ~Mark Twain
• The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum. ~Adlai Stevenson
• My community is always at the center of what I do, as inspiration, reason, and hope. ~Nydia Vel’azquez

Lower Stairwell Wall

• A good book is the purest essence of a human soul. ~Thomas Carlyle
• Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. ~Richard Steele
• A family library is a breeding-place of character. ~Graham Greene
• Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library. The only entrance requirement is interest. ~Lady Bird Johnson
• There is no Frigate like a Book/To take us Lands away. ~Emily Dickinson