Andrew Carnegie Community Quotations

Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.

A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert.

If it is right that schools should be maintained by the whole community for the well-being of the whole, it is right also that libraries should be so maintained.

The man of wealth [should] consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer to produce the most beneficial results for the community - the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to administer, doing for them better than that they would or could do for themselves.

Neither the individual nor the race is improved by almsgiving. The best means of benefiting the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise.

This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and, after doing so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community /the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.