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

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 collection. Still, it has been thought better to incur the risk of erring on the side of fulness."