Ink and Bone (The Great Library, #1)

by Rachel Caine

women must be instructed by the more developed minds of men to ensure they do not wrongly interpret the riches that the Library offers. For a perversion of knowledge is surely worse than a lack of it.

Lives are short, but knowledge is eternal. Jess had never imagined that someone would be so empty that they’d need to destroy something that precious to feel full.

“A man cannot be reduced to paper, to lines and letters! He cannot be consigned to a shelf! A life is worth more than a book! Vita hominis plus libro valet!”

Vita hominis plus libro valet!” It was the Burners’ motto: A life is worth more than a book.

Brutal as it was, it seemed to Jess that the man’s death had been nothing but a rock dropped in a fast-moving stream: a brief splash, then no trace left. He didn’t know whether that was appalling or comforting.

There are three parts to learning: information, knowledge, and wisdom. A mere accumulation of information is not knowledge, and a treasure of knowledge is not, in itself, wisdom.

He pulled out his personal journal and pen. Jess understood the impulse, all too well, to spill out the bile and hurt into ink, where no one could see it.

Always remember the words of Descartes: The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of the past centuries.

“Not all knowledge is books. Those out there, they’re history in stone. Men carved them. Men sweated in this sun to put them there, to make their city more beautiful. Who are you to say what’s worthy for men to see today, or tomorrow?” “You’re an irreligious bastard,” Portero said. “I knew you would be.”

Tota est scientia. Knowledge is all.