«All That Glisters» by Caroline Taggart

Quotations – or snippets from them – are commonly used in everyday speech, most often without the speaker knowing where they came from. From words of comfort to advice for the lovelorn, you can bet that someone, somewhere has come up with phraseology that perfectly sums up whatever situation you find yourself in and put it more succinctly than you could ever dream of.

In All That Glisters … Caroline Taggart presents some of the pithiest, wisest and most fascinating quotations we should all know, detailing where the quotation has come from and why it may be useful when searching for an elegant or informed line to illustrate a point, spice up conversation or impress one’s friends.

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.