Little Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (5th edition)

If “Small is beautiful” (E.F. Schumacher) and “Less is more” (Mies van der Rohe), then this compact A6‐sized gem is treasure indeed! After all “The best things come in small packages” (English proverb). I'm sorry, but I cannot review a dictionary of quotations without quoting from it! Emerson hated quotations, he wanted to know what people, themselves, knew, not like Dorothy Sayers who had a quotation for everything as “it saves original thinking”. I prefer Montaigne's “I quote others only the better to express myself”.

This book contains some 4,000 of the most famous and most useful sayings in the...