Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
Preface
A great many people have had a hand in this project over the years. Numerous staff members of the Congressional Research Service have searched for quotations wanted by Members of Congress and have made cards for the Congressional Reading Room quote file. Many a harried librarian has breathed a sigh of relief and thankfulness when finding right at hand in the quote file just what was being sought for a speech right now.
Kenton Kilmer we think translated the Latin, often more elegantly than we could find in printed sources. Harvey Baugh, long-time evening and weekend supervisor of the Reading Room and equally long-time searcher for elusive quotations, made his presence known during this project when I received from the stacks a dusty volume and found in it, marking the desired paragraph, a bookmark with Harvey’s distinctive handwriting.
Thanks are due in great measure to Teresa S. Blackwelder, Deborah C. Brudno, Adriana P. Orr, Carolyn A. Larson, and Barbara V. Fontana, who did the research with imagination, energy, perseverance, and devotion. The topical arrangement and the author and keyword indexes were prepared by Victoria P. Agee with skill and enthusiasm. LeeEllen Friedland proofread and provided editorial guidance. Thanks are also due to the individuals and organizations who helped us track down the sources of quotations.
This book is yet another cooperative effort of the entire staff of the Congressional Reference Division of CRS—those who worked on the quotes directly and those who provided administrative, technical, clerical, and backup support and services—and all are entitled to feel pride of accomplishment in its appearance. Among the present and former members of the Division who have contributed greatly are Margaret E. Melun, F. Anne Ritchings (who spearheaded the project), Victoria C. Hill, Mary Nell Bryant, and Robert Newlen. Basil T. Owens, former assistant director of CRS for assignment, reference, and special services, and Catherine A. Jones, chief, Congressional Reference Division, provided administrative leadership.
We are librarians, not scholars, and this work reflects it. We were also using the collections of a very large, busy library. The volumes wanted were not always available, or if available once, not always later. We have in many instances used the first edition or an early edition of a work, but in some cases we have deliberately used twentieth-century editions, which are generally much more readily available in libraries. We have provided an exact citation to a printed work, except for Shakespeare and the Bible, and we have tried to make it easy for others to find the same item by giving chapters, paragraphs, sections, and so on, where appropriate. Many dictionaries of quotations only give the name of the work or the chapter, and it can take a great deal of reading in a chapter of seventy to one hundred pages to find the desired paragraph or sentence. We have sometimes used the best-known translations, other times not, because we tried to get as close to the translations in the quote file as we could.
Not surprisingly, many of the persons quoted in this book were Members of Congress, if not when quoted then at some other time in their careers. We have identified them by using “Representative” or “Senator” before the name if the individual was a Member of Congress at the time the remark was made. If the individual was a Member of Congress at some other time, a note to that effect appears.
We have given the context of the quotations in many cases, along with notes as appropriate, necessary, or interesting. As the compilers of The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations expressed it: “In many places more of the context of the actual familiar phrase has been given than is strictly necessary; but this has been a practice throughout the book, and one which it was thought would add to its value and charm” (2d ed., p. ix, 1956).
Where we have been able to identify the published source of the quotation, we have given it. Where we have searched an author’s works without finding the quotation, we have added “unverified.” We would be happy to receive information giving sources as exactly as may be possible. However, it will not help to point out that such-and-such a work also attributes this quotation to, say, Disraeli, if it does not give a source. Information and queries may be sent to Quotations Editor, Congressional Reference Division, CRS, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540.
Congressional Reference Division