Top 7 Quotes by Melvil Dewey

Our great function is to inform or to inspire, or to please; to give to the public in the quickest and cheapest way information, inspiration, and recreation on the highest plane. If a better way than the books is found

Our great function is to inform or to inspire, or to please; to give to the public in the quickest and cheapest way information, inspiration, and recreation on the highest plane. If a better way than the books is found we should use it.

Melvil Dewey

Book, Inspiration, Giving

"Melvil Dewey: His Enduring Presence in Librarianship".

Reading is a mighty engine, beside which steam and electricity sink into insignificance.

Melvil Dewey

Reading, Electricity, Steam

Melvil Dewey (1888). “Libraries as Related to the Educational Work of the State”

To my thinking, a great librarian must have a clear head, a strong hand, and, above all, a great heart. And when I look into the future, I am inclined to think that most of the men who achieve this greatness will be women.

Melvil Dewey

Strong, Heart, Greatness

The time was when a library was very like a museum and the librarian a mouser among dusty books. The time is when the library is a school and the librarian in the highest sense a teacher.

Melvil Dewey

Teacher, Book, School