Minds alive on the shelves...

Photo courtesy of NYPL Digital Gallery

"These are not books, 

lumps of lifeless paper, 

but minds alive on the shelves.  

From each of them 

goes out its own voice... 

and just as the touch 

of a button on our set 

will fill the room with music, 

so by taking down 

one of these volumes 

and opening it, 

one can call into range 

the voice of a man

 far distant in time and space, 

and hear him speaking to us, 

mind to mind, heart to heart."  

~ Gilbert Highet

I love the idea of books being "minds alive on a shelf", coming to us from all over the world, from the past and the present. Books are not just paper and ink; they are words that call to us from the minds of their authors.