Quotations [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION Books of quotations answer two basic questions: 'Who said what?' and 'What was said by whom?' The uses to which they are put are many and various: readers', writers' and speakers' companion, crossword-solving aid, memory jogger, a diverting browse. A pocket book of quotations must serve the same purpose as a compre-hensive volume, however reduced. It should contain the quotations most people would reasonably expect to find (tranches of the Bible, Shake-speare, Johnson, Wilde, plus the famous one-offs — power corrupts, let them eat cake, etc.) with a sprinkling of not so well known and even fairly recent topical phrases. For reasons of space, the following have been excluded: songs, hymns, nursery rhymes, ballads, proverbs, liturgies — with some exceptions. Each generation has its head stuffed with different allusions to, memories of, history, politics, morality, literature, art, music, etc., but I hope the range of quotations selected is wide enough for most ages; that there will be recognition of old favourites and appreciation of the unfamiliar (as I found myself in the compiling); that, in short, the collection will be entertaining and useful. Samuel Johnson claimed that the quotations in his Dictionary contrib-uted 'to the stability or enlargement of the language.' Our daily discourse is certainly enriched, enlivened or enhanced by these 'disiecta membra', the gobbets of wit and wisdom, of the great and the good and the not so great and good of the last two-and-a-half thousand years. Quotations reinforce — and decorate. They may be detached feathers, but nobody minds you sticking them in your own cap. Someone has always said what you want to say so much better. Thanks to Alan Durndell, Joe Fisher, Roddy Forsyth, Lorraine Harvey, Kevin McCarra, Leslie Verth, Mike Watson MP, Christina Whyte and Winifred Whyte for their assistance. Hamish Whyte