Finding quotations

A student may ask us:

I must find a quotation. How do I search for it?

Our reply may be:

The Thammasat University Library owns many books of quotations. Let’s try doing a search on Koha for the word quotations or on the library homepage. As we see, there are many results. Books of quotations owned by the TU Library include The Columbia dictionary of quotations edited by Robert Andrews; Book lovers quotations edited by Helen Exley; Book of business quotations edited by Bill Ridgers; The Columbia Granger’s dictionary of poetry quotations edited by Edith P. Hazen; The concise Oxford dictionary of quotations edited by Elizabeth Knowles; A dictionary of Oriental quotations (Arabic and Persian); Dictionary of quotable definitions. Edited by Eugene E. Brussell; Dictionary of quotations, collected, arranged and with comments; A dictionary of quotations from Shakespeare : a topical guide to over 3,000 great passages from the plays, sonnets, and narrative poems selected by Margaret Miner and Hugh Rawson; A dictionary of wit, wisdom & satire, by Herbert V. Prochnow and Herbert V. Prochnow, Jr.; Dictionnaire des proverbes, sentences, et maximes; Familiar quotations by John Bartlett; The flowers of the sea; an anthology of quotations, poems and prose; The Guinness dictionary of quotations for all occasions / compiled by Gareth Sharpe; Dictionary of classic Chinese quotations with English translation edited by Gao Xiaofang; Harrap’s book of humorous quotations with cartoons by Gren ; chosen and introduced by G.F. Lamb; Inspiring quotations from around the world edited by Ohuchi Hiroshi and Janet Ohuchi; Key quotations in sociology edited by Kenneth Thompson; Lawyer’s wit and wisdom: quotations on the legal profession in brief compiled by Kathryn Zullo; Leadership compiled and edited by William Safire and Leonard Safir; Lend me your ears: Oxford dictionary of political quotations edited by Antony Jay; The Macmillan book of proverbs, maxims, and famous phrases; The Macmillan dictionary of political quotations edited by Lewis D. Eigen and Jonathan P. Siegel; Malaysian politicians say the darndest things. Vol. 2 compiled by Amir Muhammad with artworks by Fahmi Reza; Mark Twain laughing: humorous anecdotes by and about Samuel L. Clemens edited, with an introduction by Paul M. Zall; The meaning of history: a dictionary of quotations edited by N. Gordon Carper and Joyce Carper; The New international dictionary of quotations selected by Hugh Rawson and Margaret Miner; The new Penguin dictionary of modern quotations edited by Robert Andrews; The New Penguin dictionary of quotations compiled by J.M. and M.J. Cohen; The Oxford dictionary of American legal quotations compiled by Fred R. Shapiro; The Oxford dictionary of humorous quotations edited by Ned Sherrin; The Oxford dictionary of literary quotations edited by Peter Kemp; The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations edited by Elizabeth Knowles; The Oxford dictionary of quotations edited by Angela Partington; The Oxford dictionary of quotations edited by Elizabeth Knowles; The Oxford dictionary of quotations by subject edited by Susan Ratcliffe; The quotable Einstein collected and edited by Alice Calaprice; The Quotable historian: words of wisdom from Winston Churchill, Barbara Tuchman, Edward Gibbon, Julius Caesar, David McCullough, and more edited by Alan Axelrod; The quotable Machiavelli edited by Maurizio Viroli; The Quotable woman: words of wisdom from Mother Teresa, Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf, Eleanor Roosevelt, Katharine Hepburn, and More compiled by Carol A. Turkington;        The Quotable writer: words of Wisdom from Mark Twain, Aristotle, Oscar Wilde, Robert Frost, Erica Jong, and More selected by William A. Gordon; Quotations from Shakespeare. With an introduction and prefatory notes by Peter Quennell; Quotations in history: a dictionary of historical quotations c. 800 A.D. to the present compiled by Alan and Veronica Palmer; The quotations of Chairman Greenspan: words from the man who can shake the world by Larry Kahaner; Random House Webster’s quotationary edited by Leonard Roy Frank; The Routledge dictionary of religious & spiritual quotations compiled by Geoffrey Parrinder; Shakespeare for lawyers: a practical guide to quoting the bard by Margaret Graham Tebo; Speaking of higher education: the academic’s book of quotations by Robert Birnbaum; The Tao of Warren Buffett : Warren Buffett’s words of wisdom: quotations and interpretations to help guide you to billionaire wealth and enlightened business management by Mary Buffett and David Clark; The Vietnam War: an encyclopedia of quotations by Howard J. Langer; The Wiley book of business quotations compiled by Henry Ehrlich; Words of wisdom: philosophy’s most important quotations and their meanings by Gareth Southwell; and several others

The student may wonder:

How do I know what book to look in?

Our answer might be:

That depends what we are looking for and why we are looking for it.

Further explanations will continue in the next blog on Basic English Phrases for Library Staff.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)