Quotations Books

I recommend this book to everybody interested in Polish culture, Polish literature and Polish folk wisdom. It contains the selection of aphorisms from works of almost all prominent Polish writers, poets and even some politicians as well as some folk proverbs.
Excellent translation by Jacek Galazka, nice graphics. Since it is a bilingual edition - it can serve as a pleasant way to learn Polish (or English).

This isn't the type of book you would necessarily sit down and read through from cover to cover because it's basically a collection of short quotes - aphorisms - with the original Polish on one side, the English on the other side, and a few illustrations throughout the book.

For a book to look at when you have just a couple minutes, or your mind is wandering, this book is terrific for the wit and wisdom to be found within. Here are a couple examples:

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

Friendship after love is like smoke after fire.

He who accepts slavery once will never be free.

I enjoyed this book emmensly and cannot wait to own it

This book is translated all the way through, so the non-Spanish speaker can find some special passage in its words that can be dear to their own heart. Then they can recite it repeatedly in Spanish. It's great.

Rabbi Sidney Greenberg was a distinguished congregational Rabbi. He was also a skilled writer and anthologist. In this collection which has a forward by Harry Golden he ranges far and wide to bring wisdom on various aspects of 'The Art of Living' His chapters are: 1) The Art of Living 2)The Art of Living Happily 3) The Art of Living with the Highest 4)The Art of Living at our Best 5) The Art of Living with Ourselves 6) The Art of Living with our Families 7) The Art of Living with our fellow man 8) The Art of Living with our Heritage 9) The Art of Living with Democracy 10)The Art of Living when Life is Difficult 11)The Art of Living with Faith.

Every chapter has gems of its own. I will cite a few just to give a taste of the book.

Here is a citation for the baby- boomer generation.
"It's not how old you are, but how you are old. " Marie Dressler

Here's Einstein on living a worthwhile life.
"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."

Here is Confucius on 'wise remembering'
"Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses."

Here is William Ralph Inge on happy people.
"The happiest people seem to be those who have no particular cause for being happy except that they are so."

Here is Churchill on the goals of life.
"All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope.

Here is Moses Mendelssohn's creed for life.
"To love the beautiful, to desire the good, to do the best."

Here is Coleridge on our dealing with our own fate.
"It often amuses me to hear men impute all their misfortunes to fate, luck or destiny, whilst their successes or good fortune they ascribe to their own sagacity, cleverness or penetration."

Here is Samuel Johnson on the 'greatness of little things.'
"There is nothing too little for so little a creature as man.It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible."

A Yiddish proverb on the importance of friends.
"Friends are needed for both joy and for sorrow."

And here is a piece of advice I frequently do not follow.
"Never read any book that is not a year old. " Emerson

And here is a person whose name I have never encountered before, Leon Gutterman on the value of books.
"Without the love of books the richest man is poor; but endowed with this treasure of treasures, the poorest man is rich. He has wealth which no power can diminish; riches whcih are always increasing; possessions which the more he scatters the more they accumulate; friends which never desert him and pleasures which never die."

This is an anthology I hope to be looking into from time to time for a long time to come.

A Treasury of the Art of Living is one of those rare finds of literary compilation. Some of the ages finest thinkers have their thoughts immortalized among these pages. Eleven chapters and 86 different categories give inspiration and insight to our lives. Everyone should own a copy of this book. Simply outstanding.

If you can look beyond the lurid titles of Vernon Howards books,you might be pleasantly surprised to find a truly inspirational perspective. This book, consisting of upwards of 2000 brief remarks about spiritual progress, is indeed an inspirational and oftentimes startling series of observations about the inner world. I feel it would be useful to anyone on a variety of spiritual paths. This book, like Howards others, makes no pretensions to offering a comprehensive, step-by-step "how to do it all" opus, but perhaps that is one of its real strengths. Although occasionally lapsing intobeing merely simplistic ("The first few years of life we buid abrick wall around us; Happiness is better then misery") overall most of the observations are profoundly evocative; i,e; "Inner guidance is heard like soft music in the night by those who have learned to listen".

This is an outstanding collection of spiritual wisdom written by an awakened man. It is as refreshing and stimulating as anything that I have ever read. There is no human problem that cannot be solved by studying any page of this remarkable book. Bravo Vernon Howard.

I have never been one to read the bible, but upon receiving this book as a gift, I began this monstrous task with these short but powerfull passages. Although I am not a religious person, I do appreciate the wonderful lines printed in this collection, and I soon realized that I was taking a lot away from the biblical stories and verses in "Tree of Life." This book is one that I have recomended to both my religious friends and not so religious friends alike.

"Tree of Life" is a book of 365 excerpts from the New International Version of the Bible. Each one of these excerpts has been carefully selected to be appropriate for common life situations. Eric Kampmann doesn't include page after page of personal commentary or direction for the reader. Instead he has selected the verses and the title for the devotional and left it up to the reader to determine what it means to them. I actually found this format to be much more beneficial than many devotional books that provide a single verse and multiple lines of commentary. For this format to work well it is critically important that the verses are carefully selected to reflect a deeper truth and enough verses from the passage are selected to make that deeper truth easily accessible. Eric Kampmann had done an excellent job of selecting perfect verses. "Tree of Life" is an excellent devotional book that I would recommend to anyone, not just men, as the subtitle would indicate.

I bought this for my mom (over 70 years old) since she always gets a kick out of Bush's mishaps. I did not get to see the book itself, however, after she unwrapped the gift on the phone, she cackled for several minutes as she was reading funny clips from the book. I felt like I got my money's worth from this gift. I give this 5 stars for my mom (since she doesn't have a computer)...because its obvious she enjoys the book.

This is yet another volume of quotes from the Bush lexicon. It contains numerous new quotes, uttered since the last edition, as well as the top 25 greatest "Bushisms" of all time. Some are simply humorous, while some are laugh out loud funny and the collection will keep you entertained for quite a while. I personally keep mine handy and read the sayings again and again to remind myself why I volunteer at a high school. Buy it, read and enjoy it....it may be the last book of quotes we ever get from this great mis-communicator.

This may be one of the most touching books about a mother's relationship with her boys I have ever read. I have it 'displayed' next to their picture and everyone who reads it, LOVES it! A perfect gift!

This may be one of the most touching books about a mother's relationship with her boys I have ever read. I have it 'displayed' next to their picture and everyone who reads it, LOVES it! A perfect gift!

Contrary to popular belief, no-one went around with Jesus as He traveled through Galilee, recording His sayings as He spoke them. But His words obviously made a considerable impression on His hearers. Peter, for example, not only remembered the saying, "Anyone who does the will of God, is brother, sister and mother to Me!" but the specific circumstances which gave rise to this quote. (See Chapter 3 of the Gospel of Mark in More Bible Wisdom for Modern Times: Selections from the Early New Testament.) Other men who came into contact with the apostles, like Paul and Sylvanus, also wrote down sayings like "It is more blessed to give than to receive", and "Wheresoever there are two gathered in My name, they are not without God; and where there is one alone, I say I am with him." Not all of these recorded sayings made it into the New Testament. In "The Unknown Sayings of Jesus", Marvin Meyer has published sayings attributed to Jesus from a wide variety of early Christian, Jewish and Islamic sources. A few parallel Biblical sayings, while some have an authentic ring ("Truth seeks the wise and the righteous"), and others seem a little fanciful ("Laughing, some people have entered the kingdom of heaven; and they have left it laughing too") because we no longer know whom Jesus was addressing nor the circumstances. But we are given no less than 200 sayings and little stories to choose from in this invaluable collection. There's also an excellent introduction which provides a guide for the reader to sift the probable from the unlikely.

I read this book as someone raised Christian who now is inspired by most of the world's religions. I'm one of those people who hasn't met a religion they didn't like!

Christianity still holds a special place in my heart. Just like I've discovered sushi & Thai food since leaving home, doesn't mean I still don't like mom's home cooking! And that's what Jesus is for me: plain, good & wonderful comfort food.

This book gives us plenty to chew on and think about, both within a "Jesus only" tradition and without. And it does so without a lot of religious tradition or scholarly jargon getting in the way. If you're poly-religious like myself, you'll contemplate each saying and how it relates to sayings by other sages and masters. And if you're mono-religious, you'll find a lot of inspiring sayings by Jesus that just might cause you to look deeper into your own faith tradition, whether Christian or not.

The main thing to remember when looking at books like these is that Jesus was a revolutionary, aramaic-speaking Jewish peasant (probably illiterate) and for that reason was put to death by the Romans. What he actually said was then written down by many people over the following centuries. Approximately 300 years later the 4 gospels were canonized and some of his words were put in Greek in the allegorical context of the Jewish Messiah. Needless to say a lot of other stuff attributed to him was outside that Christian tradition that developed at the time. Of course, looking back, it's hard to see the Jesus for the Christ!

Nonetheless, his words alone are very inspiring -- and challenging and critical -- and worth reading whether within the Christian tradition or without.

A great book of quotes to cheer up your divorcing friends. And yourself. Humor, wisdom, and wit.

This is an OUTSTANDING collection of quotes. Full of wisdom and humor and some wonderfully sharp barbs. I really did order one for each of my divorced friends (and those who should be considering it)!

Richardson is a top poet - a lean, mean wordsmith of precision and probity. He is also the leading writer of the modern American aphorism. The two sides of the man fructify each other. There are delights on every page. A marvelous gift for literate friends with a good sense of humor.

"Vectors is a book of subversive wonders. Stunningly precise, these brilliant aphorisms and ten-second essays show a mind assessing, reassessing, discovering, and interrogating assumptions in ways that feel diamond-sharp, at once good natured, quietly sly at times, and always very, very shrewd. . .Vectors can now be added to the short list of such works that will truly last."-Laurie Sheck