The Oxford dictionary of quotations

Abstract

Over 20,000 quotations A major new edition of the most authoritative dictionary of quotations available brings you the wit and wisdom of past and present – from the ancients of East and West to the global village of the 21st century. Find that half-remembered line in a browser's paradise of quotations for all occasions. Whether you lean towards the words of Jane Austen: ‘Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure’, or the advice of Paris Hilton: ‘Dress cute wherever you go. Life is too short to blend in’, the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations provides the ultimate answer to the questions ‘Who said that? (and when, and why)’.Drawing on Oxford's unrivalled dictionary research programme and unique language monitoring, almost 1,000 new quotations have been added to this seventh edition from over 500 authors, from Mary Wollstonecraft and Sarah Palin to Herman Hesse and William Hazlitt. These include classic quotations from established names for which new evidence of current usage has been found, such as ‘The worth of a soul cannot be told’ (the African writer and former slave Olaudah Equiano) and ‘Work first – love next’ (American writer and feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman), as well as earlier quotations used by well-known literary authors from around the English-speaking world, including the maxim of Confucius for a ruler, ‘If you desire what is good, the people will be good’ (quoted by Thoreau), and the view of the Phrygian Stoic philosopher Epictetus that ‘Not things, but opinions about things, trouble men’ (cited by Laurence Sterne).

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