Genealogy Books - The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

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Summary: An Essential Reference for Any Home Library
Comment: The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations is more than simply a collection of words people have spoken.
It's a summary of the best of our spoken and written language - the Greek and Latin authors, Dante,
The Bible, Shakespeare, the English Poets, Winston Churchill, and just about every other essential
literary or historical work of the last two thousand years. In a sense, the ODQ is not so much a
collection of famous sayings as it is a single volume summary of western literature you can use to
track down a line from a poem or novel as well as a phrase from a famous speech. This is an
essential reference work for anyone interested in literature or history and should be part of any
home library alongside such frequently used books as a dictionary or encyclopedia.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Best choice for Brits
Comment: The question for most people looking to purchase a book of quotations is whether to get Bartlett's
Familiar Quotations or The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. So perhaps it would be a good idea to
compare them and see which might better meet your needs.

Both are important works of reference;
both are authoritative. Bartlett's latest edition, the 17th is from 2002 while this, the latest
Oxford, is from 1999 with a reprint with corrections from 2001. So both are relatively up to date.
Bartlett's is a slightly larger book with perhaps 300 more pages; however the number of actual
quotations is not that different. Both books quote over 3,000 authors and contain over 20,000
quotations.

The most significant difference between them, to my mind, is that in the Oxford,
English authors are favored both in terms of number included and entries by, which is to be expected
since the Oxford is an British publication while Bartlett's is an American publication. A quick
check shows that British mathematician and philosopher Bertram Russell, for example, has more
entries in the Oxford than he does in Bartlett's, whereas both Mark Twain and the Baltimore sage, H.
L. Mencken, have more entries in Bartlett's than they do in the Oxford. France's Voltaire commands
just about the same space in either book.

The next most important difference is that the
quotations are presented alphabetically by author in the Oxford while Bartlett's presents them
chronologically beginning with the oldest. Both sources give author's dates. Personally I find the
alphabetical arrangement preferable because it often saves me a trip to the alphabetical "Index of
Authors" in Bartlett's that I have to make before finding the author I am interested in. When one
is looking for a quote by keyword, which often happens, Bartlett's is slightly to be preferred. Its
Index is definitely longer (accounting for most of the difference in length between the books) and
it is more extensively cross-referenced. In looking up Marx's "From each according to his
abilities, to each according to his needs" I found the quote in the Oxford from the keywords
"according," "abilities," and "needs." In Bartlett's "according" did not work, but "each,"
"abilities," and "needs" did. So that was a standoff. However I found the Golden Rule and its
source in Bartlett's without any trouble by looking under "Golden Rule" and under "do unto." In the
Oxford neither "Golden Rule" nor "do unto" were in the Index of keywords. Both books give Matthew
7:12 as the source.

The Oxford has a slightly more international approach to religious texts.
There is a little less of the Bible here, but more of the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran,
and other non-Christian texts, except for the Tao Te Ching from Lao Tzu where Bartlett's has 34
entries to 19 for the Oxford.

Another feature that the Oxford has that will be handy for some is
its "Special Categories" which are "Advertising Slogans" (mostly for products sold in the UK),
"Misquotations," "Newspaper Headlines and Leaders," "Political Slogans and Songs," and fifteen more.
These are text boxes appearing alphabetically among the quotations. Curiously they give the rather
staid Oxford reputation a bit of a colloquial feel that may surprise some people.

So how to choose
between these two very excellent works of reference? I like them both and if I had to part with
either, I would reluctantly let the Oxford go. However if I were English I would part with
Bartlett's and keep the Oxford. I really think they are that close in quality. For a secondary
consideration, I would prefer the Oxford since its slightly smaller size is a bit handier,
especially when balanced on one's chest as one reads in bed!

Bottom line: no serious writer
(especially of literature, culture and history) should be without either this or Bartlett's. Next
to a dictionary a book of quotations is my most consulted work of reference. To solve the dilemma,
I recommend that you splurge and get them both!

Customer Rating:

Summary: Excellent Source Book!
Comment: The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations gives you more than you could ever possibly use! For a writer
who often uses quotes to back up certain portions of my works, I have found this edition more than
satisfactory & worth every penny paid for it. About the last 3rd of the book houses the index, where
you can look up any word & corresponding quotes. It directs you to the page where it's listed by
giving you the author's name, the page number, and then a number for the paragraph where you'll find
your quote.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Indispensable volume
Comment: This is one to have at hand right there by your desk all the time, ready to dip into whenever you
get stuck looking for the source of a famous quote. Or one to have in the bathroom, for
entertainment during long sessions on the toilet. Or on the bedstand for some light nighttime
reading. The updated version seems good enough, though perhaps some might detect a bias towards the
English when it comes to the newer entries (but then, it is an English publication). I was also
disappointed with a few ommissions (I looked for Keith Waterhouse and Terry Johnson, both British
comedy writers, and both sadly absent), but then you can't please all of the people all of the time
(...hang on a sec... hmm, looks like that's a garbled version of something Abe Lincoln said... Gee,
this thing is useful!). The listings at the top corner of each page are a little annoying, since
they give the Christian name first, thus making it slightly more difficult to find something
alphabetically, but this is just one minor fault in an otherwise excellently presented publication.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Great quote book...
Comment: I highly recommend this worthy publication. I consider it a much better "quotations book" than the
current (17th) edition of Bartlett's, because of its superior balance and more representative
content. The organization is by author, although it does have an excellent and very extensive index,
as well as a (rather small) topic-oriented content section.

If you need and/or enjoy "quote books"
you simply must have this one.

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