Oprah Winfrey Quotes

My most prized possession was my library card from the Oakland Public Library.

My mom used to tell me that the most valuable thing she owned was her library card. We were poor, but that's not what she was talking about. My mom knew that education opened doors and opened minds.

Education is the most powerful tool for everything but certainly to create opportunities for yourself, and I know that not everyone has the privilege of an education like here in America.

I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it wasn’t for the opportunities the library gave me.

Libraries are community treasure chests, loaded with a wealth of information available to everyone equally, and the key to that treasure chest is the library card. I have found the most valuable thing in my wallet is my library card.

Freedom is found through the portals of our nation's libraries.

The library is the temple of learning, and learning has liberated more people than all the wars in history.

I feel very privileged to have reached so many kids because a life without stories, without the power of books, would be a very grey world, it's good to add colour.

I remember being shocked when I discovered some of my school pals didn't have books in their homes. I thought it was like not having oxygen, or hot water.

In my opinion, right up there with free public schools, our free public library system is what makes citizenship possible, even what makes America great.

I was on my own at Wellesley, surrounded by a lot of young women who were motivated and intellectually curious. I started to read because I was required to do so for class, but I soon found myself enjoying the seclusion of the library. I came to see reading as an important way to learn about people, including myself.

He that loves reading has everything within his reach.

Education is not just another consumer item. It is the bedrock of our democracy.

Without education, you can’t have democracy.

O people of America. The destinies of your country are in your own hands. They are committed to your own keeping. It is for you to say which ye will have, liberty or slavery, knowledge or ignorance, happiness or misery.

Without education, you’re not you and I’m not me.

Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; …

Thus far woman has struggled through life with bandaged eyes, accepting the dogma of her weakness and inability to take care of herself not only physically but intellectually. She has held out a trembling hand and received gratefully the proffered aid. She has foregone her right to study, to know the laws and purposes of government to which she is subject. But there is now awakened in her a consciousness that she is defrauded of her legitimate Rights and that she never can fulfill her mission until she is placed in that position to which she feels herself called by the divinity within. Hitherto she has surrendered her person and her individuality to man, but she can no longer do this and not feel that she is outraging her nature and her God

It was an amazing feeling of now being a larger part of your state

I was born in the U.S. This is my country.

There are two equalizers in life: the Internet and education.

My father encouraged me to work in the library, just because it was the world that he knew. But I also wanted to do it. I also wanted to work in the library and be part of the library somehow, because it represented a world that really wasn't represented in my home, and I wanted it to be.

French citizenship should be either inherited or merited.

Though he was not a reader himself, my father understood that reading is not just an escape. It is access to a better way of life.

I lived in the library with my grandmother as a child. I still love the smell of books; the library card is still my friend.