Well, i'm a big fan of collections of quotes, aphorisms, what have you. And often apprecaite the ones shared in Recomendo (so thanks for those). And i have a massive commonplace book that only grows and grows with what i add to it yearly, even weekly. But we also live in an age of incredible misquotation. And Wells' book (from what i can tell from the Amazon preview doesn't appear to include sources (at least they do not appear as footnotes and there's no indication from the contents page of a reference section). I appreciate the disclaimer that assures "best effort" but I have learned not to use nor trust quotes without sources. When i like a quote I often find that there is as much (often more) meaning to be found in its context than in the privileged fragment. I made my first "Book of Days" of quotes in 1985 before i developed the habit of proper citation and have spent years amending my entries. I find we often are attracted to quotes that confirm our biases only to find those biases well-challenged when we learn more about the context of the quote. I'll be giving this book a pass for now. (Also, and this is quibbly for sure, i noticed a quote from Jordan Peterson, an odious former neighbour, if you can believe that, and seeing his words always leaves me with a bad taste).
I personally don't care who said a quote; I am much more interested in the idea. In fact most of the quotes in this book are attributed to people whom I have never heard of, which works the same. However if you are interested in getting to the exact source of a quote by far the best source is the Quote Investigator. https://quoteinvestigator.com/ He spends mountains of trouble in tracking down and citing the precise and verifiable source for a legion of quotes, and goes through many of the misquotes and misattributions, which is fun.
“One who does not read good books has little advantage over one who can not.” — Of uncertain origin but of certain truth
“Nice guys always finish first. If you don’t know this, you don’t know where the finish line is.” — Garry Shandling
Well, i'm a big fan of collections of quotes, aphorisms, what have you. And often apprecaite the ones shared in Recomendo (so thanks for those). And i have a massive commonplace book that only grows and grows with what i add to it yearly, even weekly. But we also live in an age of incredible misquotation. And Wells' book (from what i can tell from the Amazon preview doesn't appear to include sources (at least they do not appear as footnotes and there's no indication from the contents page of a reference section). I appreciate the disclaimer that assures "best effort" but I have learned not to use nor trust quotes without sources. When i like a quote I often find that there is as much (often more) meaning to be found in its context than in the privileged fragment. I made my first "Book of Days" of quotes in 1985 before i developed the habit of proper citation and have spent years amending my entries. I find we often are attracted to quotes that confirm our biases only to find those biases well-challenged when we learn more about the context of the quote. I'll be giving this book a pass for now. (Also, and this is quibbly for sure, i noticed a quote from Jordan Peterson, an odious former neighbour, if you can believe that, and seeing his words always leaves me with a bad taste).
I personally don't care who said a quote; I am much more interested in the idea. In fact most of the quotes in this book are attributed to people whom I have never heard of, which works the same. However if you are interested in getting to the exact source of a quote by far the best source is the Quote Investigator. https://quoteinvestigator.com/ He spends mountains of trouble in tracking down and citing the precise and verifiable source for a legion of quotes, and goes through many of the misquotes and misattributions, which is fun.
Oh yeah. Indeed! I'm a big fan of quote investigator! Informative and often quite entertaining, as well.