Part of the pleasure of this book is to reveal the provenance of the well-worn quote (or misquote)—my cup runneth over, ay, there’s the rub, to err is human, the spice of life—but also to introduce some less familiar ones.
Most of the quotations included are from classic sources—from the Bible, the works of Shakespeare, other poets, classical authors, Dickens (God bless us everyone, waiting for something to turn up, very humble), Charlotte Bronte (Reader, I married him) and George Bernard Shaw (who didn’t actually say Youth is wasted on the young, but may have said something like it. Somewhere. No one seems to know for sure). This entertaining and informed—but not too serious—take on the wit and wisdom of the last 2000 years is ideal for modern readers who like their knowledge in tweet-sized chunks.