The Project Gutenberg EBook of Familiar Quotations, by John Bartlett

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Title: Familiar Quotations
A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to
Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature

Author: John Bartlett

Release Date: January 25, 2009 [EBook #27889]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS:

A COLLECTION OF

PASSAGES, PHRASES, AND PROVERBS

TRACED TO THEIR SOURCES IN

ANCIENT AND MODERN LITERATURE

BY JOHN BARTLETT.

"I have gathered a posie of other men's flowers, and nothing but
the thread that binds them is mine own."

NINTH EDITION.

BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
1905.

_Copyright, 1875, 1882, 1891, 1903,_
BY JOHN BARTLETT.

UNIVERSITY PRESS:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

THIS EDITION
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO
THE MEMORY OF THE LATE ASSISTANT EDITOR,

REZIN A. WIGHT.

PREFACE.

"Out of the old fieldes cometh al this new corne fro yere to yere,"
And out of the fresh woodes cometh al these new flowres here.

THE small thin volume, the first to bear the title of this collection,
after passing through eight editions, each enlarged, now culminates in
its ninth,--and with it, closes its tentative life.

This extract from the Preface of the fourth edition is applicable to the
present one:--

"It is not easy to determine in all cases the degree of familiarity that
may belong to phrases and sentences which present themselves for
admission; for what is familiar to one class of readers may be quite new
to another. Many maxims of the most famous writers of our language, and
numberless curious and happy turns from orators and poets, have knocked
at the door, and it was hard to deny them. But to admit these simply on
their own merits, without assurance that the general reader would readily
recognize them as old friends, was aside from the purpose of this