#lib

Dr. Beall gave him the first shot, followed closely by the second. He said, "I'll check for a heartbeat." I said, "You don't need to. I can see it in his eyes." Dewey was gone. ↗

— Vicki Myron

#death #dewey #library #sad #death

The president, the secretary of state, the businessman, the preacher, the vendor, the spies, the clients and managers—all walking around Wall Street like chickens with their heads cut off—rushing to escape bankruptcy—plotting to melt down the Statue of Liberty—to press more copper pennies—to breed more headless chickens—to put more feathers in their caps—medals, diplomas, stock certificates, honorary doctorates—eggs and eggs of headless chickens—multitaskers—system hackers—who never know where they’re heading--northward, backward, eastward, forward, and never homeward—(where is home)—home is in the head—(but the head is cut off)—and the nest is full of banking forms and Easter eggs with coins inside. Beheaded chickens, how do you breed chickens with their heads cut off? By teaching them how to bankrupt creativity. ↗

— Giannina Braschi

#business-quotes #economy-bankrupt #liberty #politics-of-the-united-states #business

Librarians are almost always very helpful and often almost absurdly knowledgeable. Their skills are probably underestimated and largely underemployed. ↗

— Charles Medawar

#business

[W]hat counts as ‘realistic’, what seems possible at any point in the social field, is defined by a series of political determinations. An ideological position can never be really successful until it is naturalized, and it cannot be naturalized while it is still thought of as a value rather than a fact. Accordingly, neoliberalism has sought to eliminate the very category of value in the ethical sense. Over the past thirty years, capitalist realism has successfully installed a ‘business ontology’ in which it is simply obvious that everything in society, including healthcare and education, should be run as a business. … [E]mancipatory politics must always destroy the appearance of a ‘natural order’, must reveal what is presented as necessary and inevitable to be a mere contingency, just as it must make what was previously deemed to be impossible seem attainable. ↗

— Mark Fisher

#capitalist-realism #ideology #nature #neoliberalism #possibility

For him that stealeth,or borroweth and returneth not,this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain, crying aloud for mercy, and let there be no surcease to this agony till he sing in dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the worm that dieth not, and when at last he goeth to his last punishment, let the flames of hell consume him for ever. Curse on book thieves, from the monastery of San Pedro, Barcelona, Spain ↗

— Cornelia Funke

#library #malediction #change

But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever. ↗

— John Adams

#liberty #change

The most fatal thing a man can do is try to stand alone. ↗

— Carson McCullers

#demonstrate #freedom #liberty #reason #change

There is no "slippery slope" toward loss of liberties, only a long staircase where each step downward must first be tolerated by the American people and their leaders. ↗

— Alan K. Simpson

#american people #downward #each #first #leaders

...a book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements, clumsy hands. If for a hundred and a hundred years everyone had been able freely to handle our codices, the majority of them would no longer exist. So the librarian protects them not only against mankind but also against nature, and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion, the enemy of truth. ↗

— Umberto Eco

#librarians #life

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. ↗

— Ronald Reagan

#liberty #peace #security #change