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.

A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand read more

A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool.

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

One good quote is worth a book

One good quote is worth a book

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.

Wise sayings often fall on barren ground, but a kind word is never thrown away.

Wise sayings often fall on barren ground, but a kind word is never thrown away.

Every man is a borrower and a mimic, life is theatrical and literature a quotation

Every man is a borrower and a mimic, life is theatrical and literature a quotation

I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by read more

I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognizably wiser than oneself.

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.