There are many horrible sights in the multiverse. Somehow, though, to a soul attuned to the subtle rhythms of a library, there are few worse sights than a hole where a book ought to be. Someone had stolen a book.

Terry Pratchett
About This Quote

In this quote from the Lexicon of Rhetoric , someone stole a book from a library. The person who took the book was not just a thief, but a vandal, removing a work of art from its rightful place. Yet, in a way, the person did something good for the world. He or she took a book and transformed it into knowledge.

Source: Guards! Guards!

Some Similar Quotes
  1. I have met some highly intelligent believers, but history has no record to say that [s]he knew or understood the mind of god. Yet this is precisely the qualification which the godly must claim–so modestly and so humbly–to possess. It is time to withdraw our... - Christopher Hitchens
  2. Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive. - Friedrich Nietzsche
  3. When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. - Mark Twain
  4. Naive people tend to generalize people as–-good, bad, kind, or evil based on their actions. However, even the smartest person in the world is not the wisest or the most spiritual, in all matters. We are all flawed. Maybe, you didn’t know a few of... - Shannon L. Alder
  5. God save me from fools with a little philosophy–no one is more difficult to reach. - Epictetus
More Quotes By Terry Pratchett
  1. It is the vocation of the Christian in every generation to out-think all opposition.
  2. Lincoln had entirely outgrown juvenile delight in religious argument. Talking with God seemed to the mature Lincoln more important than talking about Him.
  3. He (Lincoln) recognized the delicate balance between immanence and transcendence, refusing to settle for either of these alone. His was a God who was both in the world and above the world.
  4. He (Lincoln) was accustomed to hearing words, many of them boring, but he was not accustomed to group silence.
  5. (The death of his child) "was the first experience of his life, so far as we know, which drove him to look outside of his own mind and heart for help to endure a personal grief. It was the first time in his life when...
Related Topics