A good library is a place, a palace where the lofty spirits of all nations and generations meet.

Poetry is certainly something more than good sense, but it must be good sense, just as a palace is more than a house, but it must be a house

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.

There was a not-quite-secret stairway in the back of the library building that led up to a balcony bordered by delicately arched windows. These looked out over a small courtyard lined with sour-orange trees. Across from this were the royal baths- which connected directly to the audience chamber, banquet hall, and eventually the throne room itself. That had sounded strange until Jasmine explained to Aladdin that sultans often entertained foreign guests and consulted with top advisers while enjoying a pleasant mint-scented sweat in the steam rooms.

Of the innumerable authors whose performances are thus treasured up in magnificent obscurity (in a library), most are forgotten, because they never deserved to be remembered

Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail.