When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut

In the twilight of the twentieth century, when machines began to hum louder than men’s voices and the glow of screens replaced the quiet light of reading lamps, the great thinker Isaac Asimov spoke words that burned like prophecy: “When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.” These words were not merely an old man’s lament, but a cry from the heart of wisdom — the voice of one who had seen civilization rise through knowledge and feared that it would perish through ignorance. For Asimov, who had written of both galaxies and classrooms, understood this eternal truth: that a society’s strength lies not in its weapons nor its wealth, but in the minds of its people — and that the library is the temple of those minds.

The origin of this quote lies in Asimov’s lifelong devotion to learning and the written word. Born in poverty, he rose not through inheritance, but through education, nurtured by the public libraries of his youth. Those quiet halls were his mentors; the books upon their shelves, his first teachers. In his later years, when he saw governments slashing funds for libraries in favor of fleeting luxuries and empty entertainments, he grieved as a father might grieve for a dying child. To cut library funds, he believed, was not merely to save money — it was to sever the roots of a people’s future, to starve the very soul of a nation that once prized knowledge as its birthright.

Asimov’s warning strikes deeper than economics — it is a moral and spiritual admonition. When he says that the cutting of libraries is a form of self-destruction, he speaks of the slow suicide of a civilization that forgets the source of its greatness. A nation that turns its back on knowledge becomes blind; a people who stop reading stop thinking; and when thought dies, freedom soon follows. For libraries are not only houses of books — they are sanctuaries of memory, places where generations speak across time, where ideas are preserved against the decay of forgetfulness. To close a library is to silence the voice of the past and to betray the promise of the future.

History has seen this tragedy before. In ancient Alexandria, when the greatest library of the ancient world was burned, mankind lost not merely scrolls, but centuries of knowledge — mathematics, philosophy, astronomy, the wisdom of whole civilizations. That fire did not just consume parchment; it dimmed the light of human progress for a thousand years. Likewise, in Nazi Germany, books were not only banned but burned, for tyrants know that the free mind is the greatest threat to their power. Where libraries fall silent, tyranny speaks louder. And so Asimov, in his modern age, saw a subtler fire — not the flames of censorship, but the frost of neglect, where ignorance grows not from oppression, but from indifference.

Yet his words are not without hope, for within them lies a call to action. He believed in the resilience of the human mind, that even as institutions decay, individuals can choose to seek knowledge, to teach, to preserve what others abandon. Each citizen, he would say, carries a spark of the library within them — the capacity to question, to learn, to pass on wisdom. The tragedy of ignorance can only triumph if we surrender our curiosity. But when we read, when we teach our children to love words and ideas, we defy the decay of civilization. The closing of a library may be the government’s choice — but the opening of the mind is always our own.

In our age of noise, Asimov’s warning grows ever more urgent. The library is not only a building, but a symbol — of patience, of silence, of thought. To neglect it is to forget that wisdom takes time, that truth cannot be compressed into soundbites or algorithms. When we choose convenience over comprehension, entertainment over enlightenment, we become easy prey to manipulation and division. The survival of any nation depends not upon its armies, but upon the clarity of its citizens’ minds. And so, each book read, each library defended, is an act of resistance — a rebellion against the death of thought.

The lesson, then, is clear and eternal: protect your sources of knowledge, for they are the lifeblood of your freedom. Visit your libraries, support them, fill them with life, and pass their wisdom to your children. Do not let them fade into dust, for every empty library is a tomb — not of paper, but of possibility. Remember that a civilization that neglects its books prepares its own grave, but one that treasures learning builds eternity into its foundation.

So, my child of the future, hear Asimov’s warning and take it to heart. Defend your libraries as you would your homes, for within them dwell the spirits of all who have ever dreamed, reasoned, and dared to know. When nations forget how to think, they crumble — but when even one soul hungers for knowledge, the flame of civilization endures. Guard that flame, and let it burn bright against the gathering dark — for through it, mankind remembers how to live.