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Quotations and Proverbs

Dictionaries of quotations and proverbs fulfill many research needs: identifying a given quotation or proverb, verifying an author, providing suitable statements for a subject area, and supplying selections from the writings of prominent persons.

The Research Libraries collect extensively in general and specialized quotation and proverb dictionaries, and most are located in the General Research Division; these sources provide an inestimable tool in researching not only the statements of notable people but also those proverbial expressions which succinctly epitomize a particular historical period or movement. 

The commitment to this has its origins in the acquisitions policies of the Lenox Library and the Astor Library, the two predecessor libraries of The New York Public Library.  According to the  Supplement to the Astor Library Catalogue, with an Alphabetical Index of Subjects in All the Volumes  (New York: R. Craighead, 1866),  the Astor Library collections included several dictionaries of proverbs and quotations, including those edited by John Bartlett and Francis W. Blagdon.  The need to respond effectively to researchers’ queries concerning quotations prompted the librarians of the Research Libraries to establish in the early 1930s a specialized card file for quotations, arranged by subject and text.  Although the majority of readers’ inquiries have dealt with literary and historical quotations, the librarians have responded to those of a more idiosyncratic nature, including dying words of notables and the renderings of well-known English-language proverbs and quotations into foreign tongues.

In addition to the standard dictionaries of quotations, the General Research Division collects quotation dictionaries arranged by various specializations.  Prominent among these are anthologies of quotations from a specific individual, such as political leaders or writers.  Dictionaries of quotations may also be found for occupations (e.g., presidents, women golfers, politicians, and rock musicians), places (e.g., New York, Rome, and Ireland), and  subjects and themes (e.g., philosophy, religion, literature, education, fishing, chess, communism, Wall Street, nature, pioneers, women, and last words). 

Anthologies of quotations are also available in foreign languages, both classical and modern, and many of these are bilingual.  In most of these cases, the second language is English, but other variants are found (such as dictionaries of Latin quotations with renderings into French).

The Research Libraries also collect extensively in materials dealing with proverbs.  In addition to the general anthologies and dictionaries in this area, the Library has many specialized collections of proverbs, arranged by language with some bi-lingual.  The languages covered represent the entire globe and include tongues and dialects spoken by only small numbers of people.  In addition, some of the foreign-language anthologies of proverbs are specific to certain regions (e.g., Brittany, Calabria, and Swabia).  There are also materials dealing with the history of proverbs and the role of proverbs in art and literature.

Indexes to quotations and proverbs are available in both print and electronic formats, the latter including Literature Online,  Poem Finder,  Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry,  Early English Books Online,  Early American Imprints,  and  Fagan Finder.