Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
The landmark English-language quotation reference, first published in 1855.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, first published in 1855 by the Cambridge bookseller John Bartlett, is the oldest continuously-updated quotation reference in English. The book is organised chronologically by author and includes brief biographical notes, making it as much a portable literary history as a quotation lookup.
For more than a century, Bartlett's was the default arbiter of which quotations counted as 'familiar'. Lines that did not appear in Bartlett's were, by definition, on the way to being forgotten; lines that did were canonised.
Modern editions have expanded to include song lyrics, film, and digital culture. The book remains a useful starting point for verifying older quotations, where its citations are usually reliable.
“Give me liberty, or give me death!”
Keep reading the glossary
Oxford's flagship quotation reference, prized for its rigorous sourcing.
A personal notebook of quotations, ideas, and passages — a tradition stretching from antiquity to today.
A formal reference that lets a reader locate the source of a quote.
A 2,000-year-old practice of distilling ethical instruction into short, repeatable lines.