It is my privilege to share a treat with you today. I got to review Civilization’s Quotations: Life Ideal. A really cool book filled with quotes some were funny, others sad, and yet others that were profound. Saves me time you know, to have a book at hand rather than having to search on-line for a vaguely remembered quote. Imagine this.. I now have 8000 quotes available for me, all organized and ready to for me to read, enjoy and use!
What I am Reviewing
Richard Alan Krieger put together Civilization’s Quotations: Life’s Ideal. This is a softcover book, which contains 8000 quotes within 344 pages. I am reviewing this on behalf of Ascot Media.
This is not an exhaustive compendium of the world’s most original quotations, but more so a collection of observations and maxim’s that caught the authors eye. These quotes are provided in a “poetic quotation” style. You’ll find it a fun book to go through and it also serves well as a resource when searching for just the right words to use.
The Details on Civilization’s Quotations
The book opens with an extensive table of contents that outlines each main category with the subcategories listed under. Some of the main categories are:
- Gratitude – thankfulness, praise, pleasing, value, worth
- Work – labor, employment, occupation, business, trade, proft etc
- Family – ancestors, home, marriage, parents, mother, father, children
- Time – the past, the present, now, the moment, today, the future etc.
- The world – the universe, unity, mystery
You’ll find the font is a bit small … I was happy to have my bifocals. My 14 year old had no problems though.
Most quotes run 1-2 lines each, occasionally longer quotes would pop up.
Civilizations Quotations was filled with quotes were from various time periods from the far past to more recent. Not only that they were from all over the world, different genders, and various people groups.
The quotes range from funny to serious. I have a love of old proverbs and I thoroughly enjoy reading good quotes on a wide variety of topics. Most of them are one or two lines long, but I did notice a few that were three-four lines. Those longer ones were in the minority.
My Recommendations
One thing I wish the book had was an index of authors. I would love to be able to find all the Japanese proverbs easily, or to find other quotes by Gandhi, Lincoln, or Atwood.
Overall, I love books like this. I know, I’m out of the normal stream, but seriously… reading quips, lines, proverbs and so forth.. it’s good you know?
I have a firm appreciation for the variety chosen. Not all serious, not all just fun, it was an excellent mix. Quotes were taken from all over the world.
The variety in Proverbs makes me think of making a fun workbook of learning old proverbs and what they mean. Kinda like one I did on idioms a few years back. A great tool for teaching international students English.
What a fascinating book. I have a friend who writes a daily post for a Facebook page called Making A Positive Difference. These quotes are right up her alley and I would enjoy them also. Very neat.
You’ve given me a great idea. THANKS! 🙂