Access to Knowledge Quotes

Public education is the great equalizer of America.

Education should be a fundamental human right.

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

In my world there would be as many public libraries as there are Starbucks.

Literacy unlocks the door to learning throughout life, is essential to development and health, and opens the way for democratic participation and active citizenship.

Libraries are absolutely at the center of my life. Since I couldn't afford to go to college, I attended the library three or four days a week from the age of eighteen on, and graduated from the library when I was twenty-eight.

T]he Constitution does not guarantee the right to acquire information at a public library without any risk of embarrassment.

The greatest interest at stake is not that of the copyright holders or the database companies, rather it is the interest a free and open society has in ensuring that everyone can learn the facts, regardless of their economic background. We should regard our nation’s involvement in the knowledge of its citizens … as the highest and most precious intellectual property we can ever protect.

Acquiring literacy is an empowering process, enabling millions to enjoy access to knowledge and information which broadens horizons, increases opportunities and creates alternatives for building a better life.

Librarians save lives by handing the right book at the right time to a kid in need.

Libraries should be open to all - except the censor. [Response to questionnaire in Saturday Review, October 29 1960]

Literacy could be the ladder out of poverty

That you can go anywhere in America and get a book from a library is just the most amazing thing in the world. It's not a duty; it's a privilege and it's a joy. That joy is doubled and tripled and quadrupled if you read with other people.

In one sense, the Internet is like the discovery of the printing press, only it's very different. The printing press gave us access to recorded knowledge. The Internet gives us access, not just to knowledge, but to the intelligence contained in people's crania, access to the intelligence of people on a global basis.

We have a right to know or may lawfully know any truth. And a right to know any truth whatsoever implies a right to think freely.

Everyone should be free to learn; knowledge should be disseminated as widely as possible.

A picture's worth a thousand words? A library card's worth millions.

Facts and data, rather than opinion, are the two cornerstones of problem solving, and yet they are consistently withheld from the people by American media. We must have facts and data in order to recognize where there is a problem!

I shall never forget the faces of the boys and the girls in that little Welhausen Mexican School, and I remember even yet the pain of realizing and knowing then that college was closed to practically every one of those children because they were too poor. And I think it was then that I made up my mind that this nation could never rest while the door to knowledge remained closed to any American.

In America there is a public library in every community. How many public libraries are there in Africa? Every day there are new books coming out and new ideas being discussed. But these new books and ideas don't reach Africa and we are being left behind.

There should be no obstacles to accessing knowledge.

My mother and my father were illiterate immigrants from Russia. When I was a child they were constantly amazed that I could go to a building and take a book on any subject. They couldn't believe this access to knowledge we have here in America. They couldn't believe that it was free.

I have found the most valuable thing in my wallet is my library card.

The few are always crying up the advantages of costly colleges, national acadimys and grammar schools, in order to make places for men to live without work .... But [they] are always opposed to cheep schools and woman schools, the only or princaple means by which learning is spred among the Many.

Literacy is not a luxury, it is a right and a responsibility.