Home > Media > Books > John Bartlett - Bartlett's Familiar Quotations: A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature
John Bartlett - Bartlett's Familiar Quotations: A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature
George_Chabot's Full Review: John Bartlett - Bartlett's Familiar Quotations: A ...
I’m in love with language. An avid reader since a boy, I’ve always admired an author who could turn a particularly apt phrase. Many times, in my opinion, a quotation will explain something much more profoundly than a page of other writing. As the Bible so beautifully states, “Words fitly spoken are as apples of gold in settings of silver.“
In my own attempts at writing, I’ve tried to incorporate suitable quotations where possible. I’ve eagerly memorized quotes when I’ve heard them. Who can forget astronaut Neil Armstrong’s powerful statement, One small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind,” as he became the first human being to walk on the moon? Or again, President Kennedy’s stirring challenge, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country?”
Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is a reference book that contains all of these quotations and about 22,500 more besides. A desk-sized book containing more than 1,400 pages, the quotations take up about half of the space, laid out in chronological order from earliest to latest date. The rest of the book is mainly a word index where you can look up a word or phrase and find out the rest of the quotation. The quotes are numbered similar to bible verses and the index lists your word and then the page and verse to find the full quotation and attribution. You can also look up by author if you know whom the quote is attributed to.
The Bible is a particularly rich source of pithy quotations; “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he;”“Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein;” and “Where there is no vision, the people perish” all come from that gold mine of poetic imagery.
Shakespeare is also a tremendous resource. For example, “Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself;” “Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground;” and “Things without remedy should be without regard: What’s done is done” are just a few examples of Shakespeare’s powerful language.
I think that having access to a handy source of quotations has improved both my writing and speaking skills, therefore I consider Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations as essential to my reference library as a dictionary and thesaurus.
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