In their opening to If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren’t There More Happy People, the authors write, “If [an]other fellow can [say] it better, let him. … A good quotation is a keyhole view of a boundless universe…”

And there are perhaps 4,000 such keyhole views, by ~1500 people -- ancient philosophers to contemporary bloggers -- in this quirky and entertaining collection of quotations. They’re organized by topic, each attributed to its author, and some (~10%; I did wonder why not more? or all?) annotated with backstory about the quote’s context or the author’s intent. They’re also indexed by author, accompanied by dates of birth and death, nationality, and occupation.

I first approached the book as probably intended: by reading quotes within the topics of most interest to me (eg Books: “The covers of this book are too far apart”/Ambrose Bierce; or Geometry: “A line is a dot that went for a walk”/Paul Klee). Then I flipped through the index, thrilled to be able to slice the contents according to the people who most interest me. However, those approaches leave too much good stuff to hit and miss -- and so now, although this is technically a reference work, I’m enjoying my way through the full collection, cover to cover. ( )