Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

User Review: - It's... Good... Not For Me Though...
There's a plethora of quotes and people, it's an amazing book. It's by author name. My beef with it is...

Some of my favorite people are really slacked on. Most notably American writers, essayists and thinkers. Twain get barely a full page. Melville a few lines (Moby Dick has quite a few more worthy here) Thoreau, Emerson, even Churchill has some of my favorite lines he's said missing... Nietzsche too imo should have pages he has not even one. And more disappointed with.

NOW - there are more speakers here yeah the good thing, still, I expected more.

Now I've gotten the Yale's Book of Quotations. Almost half the quotes here but they have so much more from the names I mentioned above. I don't know maybe my American Bias but I selfishly give this book 3 stars for skimping imo on many of my favorite people.

(Not to say they don't have tons of names won't find other places deservingly and other famous people, notiable English writers... many pages (Blake, Lord Tennyson) Definitely poets are NOT skimped here, you'll find many great ones here that other books won't have.)

So don't get me wrong, it's not bad, and some of my favs DO have lots of quotes here and lines and poems. I just wish it had more, and it has tons n tons! =)

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User Review: - Not my cup of tea
The following comments refer to the second (1955) edition. Let us hope the third edition is substantially improved.

A stuffy, dated, donnish, and relentlessly Anglocentric compilation, reeking of the classics curriculum at Oxford. According to the preface, familiarity is the chief criterion for inclusion. Familiarity to whom, for heaven's sake? Professors of antique languages and literatures? Horace gets seven pages. Emily Dickinson gets two lines, as does Hawthorne. Melville and Conrad get nothing at all. "The horror! The horror!"

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User Review: - ********** TEN STARS!
Who said what, when and for what reason? If it's been said, written, shouted, exclaimed or moaned in a breathy sigh, you'll find it recorded here. Three-thousand years worth of quotes from everyone who has ever been anyone: generals, saints, writers, actors, politicians, judges, criminals, heroes, the infamous, the dying, the triumphant, the fictional and the mythical. In this magnficent volume you can search either by an individual name and see all listings for that person, or by subject, and see all recorded passages about whatever topic you wish to investigate. Great for public speakers, students, writers, or lovers of wit, excoriation, or profundity, and absolutely deserving of the word "Encyclopedia" in its title.

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User Review: - Good for long quotations from famous works
This book is very different from the other quotation books I've used. It is well organized and indexed, but a large number of quotes are very large indeed. It is perhaps dominated by the Bible, Shakespeare, and a few other well-know authors/books. If you know something is from Shakespeare and you need to know where (which play, act, etc.), this book is for you. If you just collect quotes, as I do, it isn't all that helpful--Bartlett's is better for that purpose. Also, see Lieberman's 3500 quotes book and, especially, Braude's book of speakers' stories (exceptionally good). So, the Oxford book is a 3 or a 5 depending on how you want to use it. So, I gave it a 4. What can you do? As Virgil (as quoted in the book) says: "Trust one who has gone through it." Great reference text, but not a book to read through, IMHO.

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User Review: - Complaint with format, not content
I have used previous editions of the Oxford book o' quotations and, until this edition, I considered this book a must-have for anyone that relies upon reference sources for quotations, as I do as a magazine editor.

While probably trivial to most, the decision to place page numbers in the gutter rather than on the top-outside corners of each page, as in previous editions, is truly a pain. Think about it; most readers will search for quotes by topic, to which the excellent index will refer the reader by page. Tucking such (small) folios in the gutter is irritating when attempting to locate something quickly.

Truly, this is a minor complaint, but I find myself using the previous edition and hope the next edition will rectify this flaw in the current edition's functionality...

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