The opening of Preface
The present "Book of Quotations" was undertaken in the belief that, notwithstanding the many excellent compilations of the kind already in existence, there was room for another that should glean its materials from a wider area, and that should have more respect to the requirements, both speculative and practical, of the times we live in. The wide-spread materials at command had never yet been collected into a single volume, and certain modern writings, fraught with a wisdom that supremely deserves our regard, had hardly been quarried in at all.
The Editor has therefore studied to compile a more comprehensive collection; embracing something of this wisdom, which naturally bears more directly on the interests of the present day. To these interests the Editor has all along had an eye, and he has been careful to collect, from ancient sources as well as modern, sayings that seem to reveal an insight into them, and bear pertinently upon them; they are such as are specified on the title-page, and they are one and all more than passing ones.