Over at The Dispatch (ungated here) I have a critique of the latest edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. As I say, Bartlett’s is “the gold standard of quotations, the place anyone can go to confirm a quote and see the source.” But its editors “seem far more familiar with the words of liberal, leftist, and socialist sources than those of conservatives and libertarians.”
Over the past 40 years, since the rise of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, John Paul II, and even Deng Xiaoping, the world has seen a turn toward markets and economic freedom (albeit with a fall in 2020 during the pandemic lockdowns). But the thinkers and leaders of that historic change are heavily underrepresented in Bartlett’s.
F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, and Ayn Rand get four citations each, which is slightly better than the 1992 and 2012 editions. But Karl Marx (with Friedrich Engels), whose intellectual stock is surely declining, has risen from 18 citations to 23 in the years since the collapse of Soviet communism.
P. J. O’Rourke gets only one citation. John Rawls is included, but not Robert Nozick. Reagan, one of our most quotable presidents, is represented with 11 quotes, up from 3 in the 1992 edition. Barack Obama gets 21 and John F. Kennedy 29.
In the interest of helping out the editors of the next edition, below I include some quotations that seem to me at least as “familiar” and/or “worthy of perpetuation” as many of the Bartlett’s selections. (If your favorite quotation is not here, it just might be in Bartlett’s.)
The Bible
Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king.
And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.
And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.
And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.
And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.
And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.
And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.
He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.
And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day.
I Samuel 8 (King James Version)
Lao-tzu
Without law or compulsion, men would dwell in harmony. I Ching, 32
The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be.
The more laws are promulgated, The more thieves and bandits there will be.
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