Collins Quotation Finder [antikvár]

Preface and acknowledgements Here, then, is a new and carefully selected compilation of remarks and witticisms, judgements and platitudes, 'the wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages' as Disraeli would have it . and rather more besides. From Buddha to Begin, a motley collection of saints, sinners, sages and fools are gathered together in sometimes uneasy proximity, to praise or advise or criticise or otherwise comment upon the widest possible range of subjects. All the great shibboleths are touched upon, the solemn institutions of love, marriage, death and religion, as well as a host of more particular issues that have sufficiently moved the famous and notorious to make more or less jaundiced observations. Often, the loftier the subjects, the less ceremoniously they are treated, and the more hallowed the theme, the more wickedly the whip of the cynics and the iconoclasts comes down upon it, though I hope too that the reader will find a variety of moods and sentiments to fit his or her own humour. The more hackneyed or cliched sayings have been on the whole avoided, and preference given to lesser-known and perhaps more provocative statements, though all the stalwarts of our own literary tradition are well-represented. But there are surprises in store: brilliant jewels of pithy wit, asides of originality and insight, as well as phrases chosen simply for the elegance and evocativeness of their expression, some to tease and titillate and some to grate and pique. Topicality has not been avoided, and fashions and tastes nervously collide. I have no doubt that everyone will find something here to offend them, for no allowances have been made for personal sensibility. Alongside the obvious requirement of 'quotability', the main criteria for the inclusion of quotations in these pages have been aptness and variety, for efforts have been made to present as wide and contradictory a range of quotations and sources as possible (as a glance at the two indexes will confirm), encompassing extremes of prejudice and presumption and a choice of more mildly disagreeable views in between. Needless to say the compiler takes no responsibility for any of these, nor should the reader ascribe too much to the authors themselves, given the wild disparity and inconsistencies that may be contained in the utterances of the same person, even allowing for the fact that his or her remarks will always be out of context. Nonetheless one of the pleasures in consulting this collection, as it has been in compiling it, will be in extracting a personality from the mouths and pens of the characters quoted, for it is the presence of an individual and human factor that distinguishes a quotation from a mere aphorism or proverb. Indeed, most of the names to be found in the index are eminent and interesting enough in themselves to make one want to know what they said, and their remarks will be seen to be the