“Among the earliest ambitions to be excited in clerks, workmen, journeymen, and indeed, among all the struggling up from nothing to something, is that of owning, and constantly adding to a library of good books. A little library, growing larger every year, is an honourable part of a young man’s history. It is a man’s duty to have books. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life.”

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), U.S. clergyman, leader in the movement for the abolition of slavery