My best, my oldest friend. Helped me through college and graduate school. Still a faithful and amusing companion -- even when I am not. I love my copy of Bartlett's and wouldn't trade it, even for a newer edition. There's too many notes in the margins. I could never part with it. ( )

Absolutely invaluable reference tool for virtually any purpose: writing a speech, giving a toast, or simply looking for some bon mot to make you appear intellectual. ( )

I love this book. One holiday when money was tight, it showed up under the tree. Long on my wish list, but much too expensive at the time to buy, my husband had listened and there it was. So many times when a phrase runs through one's mind or an occasion requires just the right words, the first place I look is this book. Every library should include a copy. ( )

Indispensable. There is a temptation just to use the Internet to source quotations, but it's easy to find wrong attributions there, too. This isn't the only dictionary of quotations I have, but it's the one I check first. ( )

From Caedmon (floruit 670) to Crane (1913) in chronological order, and a Miscellaneous, Translations, Epitaphs, Bible, and Unknown Authors sections, going back to the Ancient Greeks, Egyptians, and Gesta Romanorum.
John Bartlett, born in Massachusetts in 1820, collected quotations as a kind of habit while working in the Harvard University bookstore. He selected them for their "familiarity", with the purpose of showing the provenance of expressions become "household words". He is particularly acute with Biblical and Shakespeare quotations, but remember, he is selecting for "familiarity".
In other words, there is no attempt, no claim, to present a theology in a nutshell, or a compilation of the most beautiful, or even most wise, quotations. Having said that, as the idea of publication came upon him, he expanded his collection to include not only the "familiar" but expressions "worthy of being familiar". As examples of the latter, he re-introduced the Apocrypha and presented the solemnities of the Koran to the American public.