The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages is preserved into perpetuity by a nation's proverbs, fables, read more

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages is preserved into perpetuity by a nation's proverbs, fables, folk sayings and quotations.

Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap read more

Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.

Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests and mines and stone quarries; read more

Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests and mines and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors

An apt quotation is like a lamp which flings its light over the whole sentence.

An apt quotation is like a lamp which flings its light over the whole sentence.

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages, may be preserved through quotations

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages, may be preserved through quotations

A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks read more

A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority.

To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.

To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.

With all deference to Chairman Mao and other authors whose quotations derive from longer works, it seemed that I was read more

With all deference to Chairman Mao and other authors whose quotations derive from longer works, it seemed that I was becoming the world's first writer of self-contained ready-made quotations

I pick my favourite quotations and store them in my mind as ready armour, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle read more

I pick my favourite quotations and store them in my mind as ready armour, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence.