# Quote — George R. Stewart, Earth Abides

> He had kept the university library as a reserve for the future. He had even taught the children to respect it. Yes, he had even, he was afraid, put a kind of taboo upon it. In fact, not only here but everywhere, he had always tried to impress the children with an almost mystical value of books. Still he kept the symbol of the burning of the books as one of the worst things that men could do.

- Author: [George R. Stewart](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-r-stewart.md)
- Book: [Earth Abides](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-r-stewart/earth-abides.md)
- Page: 290
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_R._Stewart#Earth_Abides_(1949)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-r-stewart/earth-abides/he-had-kept

## More from this book

> What would be the use of all these books now? Why worry about one of them? Why worry about all the millions of them? There was no one left, now, to carry on. Books themselves, mere wood pulp and lampblack, were nothing—without a mind to use them.

p. 292 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-r-stewart/earth-abides/what-would-be-the.md)

> What a strange thing then is this great civilization, that no sooner have men attained it than they seek to flee from it!

p. 293 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-r-stewart/earth-abides/what-a-strange.md)

> How then, once overthrown, shall this great civilization, except by renewed Forces and Pressures, ever come again?

p. 294 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-r-stewart/earth-abides/how-then-once.md)