Commonplacing in the Spiritual Traditions

A Bibliography

By Norman Elliott Anderson

Contents

Preface

 

I have long had a thirst for the historical sensibility of the spiritual life, that is, a desire to find others in history whose insight into the human spirit and perhaps even the divine/cosmic/human relationship could enrich my own. By reaching across time and culture to the present through their writings, historical figures provide a special perspective and challenge; and they help to ground us in a humanity that is not merely the conditioning of our present age. One of the ways in which I have learned about and come to appreciate the spiritual writings of the past has been through collections of excerpts, excerpts which have been assiduously gathered by commonplacers.

Commonplacing is the practice of entering literary excerpts and personal comments into a private journal, that is, into a commonplace book or, to use a 17th century synonym, a silva rerum ("a forest of things"). Typically the excerpts were regarded as exceptionally insightful or beautiful or as applicable to a variety of situations, and so as such they are often especially quotable.

The practice of commonplacing can be traced back in the European tradition to the 5th century B.C.E. and the Sophist, Protagoras. (See The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed., s.v. "communes loci."). Among those who have kept commonplace books are King Alfred (849-899); John Eck (1486-1543); Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556), Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592); Walter Raleigh (ca. 1554-1618); Francis Bacon (1561-1626); Robert Burton (1577-1640); Adam Winthrop (1548-1623); Robert Herrick (1591-1674); John Milton (1608-1674); John Locke (1632-1704); Elnathan Chauncy (1639?-1684); Queen Mary II (1662-1694); Cotton Mather (1663-1728); George Berkeley (1685-1753); Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758); Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826); Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831); Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834); Robert Southey (1774-1843); Matthew Arnold (1822-1888); George B. Cheever (fl. 1831); Augustus Hopkins Strong (1836-1921); George Edward Moore (1873-1958); Wallace Stevens (1879-1955); Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970); Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973); Charles P. Curtis; Robert Grabhorn; and Madeleine L'Engle. This is to name only those commonplacers that have come to my attention serendipitously. I have myself been commonplacing since my teenage years.

A number of commonplace books or "quote files" can now be found on the Internet. For an example, see the Sun Site FTP Archive.

Historically commonplacing has played an important role in education, and it has served as a vital tool of erudition.

"Boys ... had to keep notebooks or commonplace books in which to record, and then learn, idioms, quotations, or figures useful in composition or declamation. Not a little of that wide learning and impressive range of quotation adorning Elizabethan literature comes from these commonplace books." Schools in Tudor England, by Craig R. Thompson (Washington: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1958): p. 16, cf. 44.
 

"Students with literary tastes, in days when books were hard to come by, kept 'commonplace' or notebooks into which they copied out verses or prose extracts that particularly appealed to them." The Intellectual Life of Colonial New England, by Samuel Eliot Morison (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1965; reprint of the 2nd ed., 1956): p. 49.

The careful examination of commonplace books has yielded fruit in modern scholarship, sometimes less for their content than for others matters. For example, such examination has proved useful in the study of textual traditions and in the exposure of literary forgeries. See: "The textual importance of manuscript commonplace books of 1620-1660," by E. Wolf, which is a Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia mimeographed pamphlet (2nd ed., 1949); and The Scholar Adventurers, by Richard D. Altick (New York: Free Press, 1966, c1950): pp. 153ff.

The commonplace book has even served as a theological metaphor. The German materialist philosopher, Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872), succinctly summarized his understanding of God this way:

"God is for man the commonplace book where he registers his highest feelings and thoughts, the genealogical tree on which are entered the names that are dearest and most sacred to him.... The religious man having a commonplace book, a nucleus of aggregation, has an aim, and having an aim he has firm standing-ground" The Essence of Christianity, translated from the German by George Eliot [pseudonym of Marian Evans]; first published, 1854; I am using the Harper Torchbook edition (New York: Harper & Row, 1957): pp. 63-64 = chapter 5, last two paragraphs; cf. p. xvi.

In the original German, the Feuerbach quotation reads:

"Gott ist für den Menschen das Collectaneenbuch seiner höchsten Empfindungen und Gedanken, das Stammbuch, worein er die Namen der ihm theuersten, heiligsten Wesen einträgt.... Kurz der Religiöse hat, weil ein Collectaneenbuch, einen Sammelpunkt, einen Zweck, und weil einen Zweck, einen festen Grund und Boden." Das Wesen des Christentums, von Ludwig Feuerbach; originally published, 1841; I am using the 4. Aufl. (Leipzig: Otto Wigand, 1883; in Ludwig Feuerbach's Sämmtliche Werke; 7. Bd.): p. 113, 114 = 6. Kapitel, last two paragraphs.

Commonplacing has, at times, had an odium attached to it. This is partly because commonplaces, when overused, have a tendency to become trite. It is partly because they have sometimes been used in ways that are inapplicable or that show insensitivity to a situation. But most of all, it is because they are frequently used in ways that violate their original literary context, reflecting a mere show of learning and not genuine erudition or care. Even today, most books of quotations perpetuate the tendency to quote out of context by failing to provide title and page number, chapter and verse, which means that readers are hampered in checking the original contexts for themselves. Some compilers even go so far as to paraphrase their sources, which makes them unfindable even for a person willing to read through hundreds or thousands of pages in order to locate a quotation in context.

Ideally no quotation should appear without sufficient citation to be found in context quickly and easily, which is not to say that this particular ideal must always outweigh all other considerations. Unfortunately even pursuit of that ideal has hardly been the custom. We have long had to tolerate the prevalence of excerpts totally disconnected from their original contexts in quotation books and at the heads of chapters in other books. Now-a-days this deficiency is expanding into new contexts, such as e-mail signatures.

Collections of excerpts from writings in the spiritual traditions share the problems of quotation books in general and have, in addition, their own set of problems. For instance, they are frequently compiled with the intent of demonstrating sameness among diverse spiritual traditions. However, in so doing, they gloss over distinctiveness and contradictory ideas and vast differences in world views and in cultural contexts. Again we must exercise toleration, recognizing that despite the longevity of the genre, it is still in the process of maturation. This is not to deny the spiritual vision of the oneness of reality by substituting a bewitching vision of separateness. It is rather to respect the law of non-contradiction, to respect the special place of thought as being part of reality even while it seeks correspondence to reality, and to respect the recognition of diversity and its right relation to oneness as a spiritual insight in its own right.

Forewarned, users of the following bibliography will understand that most of the books mentioned are deeply flawed. Nevertheless, the reader can profit from them as gates into, first, the history of spiritual traditions and, second, tantalizing spiritual ideas worthy of further exploration for full appreciation. Such books are places of discovery -- discovery of fellow travelers on the spiritual trek, discovery of the insights of others, discovery that one is not alone.

A word on scope: Despite the above digression about commonplace books, the bibliography that follows is not a bibliography of commonplace books per se, but of books in the English language of quotations on spiritual subjects that have evidently been compiled by way of commonplacing. One of the common threads is the appreciation of spiritual experience throughout history.

The bibliography and many of the books mentioned in it are open to all spiritual traditions. However, Christianity receives the heaviest representation, one of the reasons being that it is the most published religion in English, another being that it is my own tradition and the greatest part of my contact has been with its literature.

The bibliography is divided into four sections -- general coverage, poetry, particular authors, and reference tools. Each section is merely representative of the literature that exists, although the sections are representative in varying degrees.

The "General Coverage" section actually represents most of what has come into my hands by chance over the years as a librarian and book collector. This I am sure, is but a minuscule percentage of all that exists; but, on the other hand, such books are fairly unusual, perhaps because publishers have assumed, probably with good reason, that most people are ahistorical in their approach to faith. Even in a religion such as Christianity, which is, in part, about the acts of God in history, the historical dimension of its chief religious text, the Bible, is often collapsed, and the long passage of time intervening since its writing, with its rich spiritual and theological literature, is frequently ignored, left to the learned.

The remaining sections are merely supplemental. They are given chiefly to indicate that such types of compilation exist. The titles provided are but examples of many more that could be brought forward.

Out of scope, although closely related, are collections of devotional classics, collections of hymns, collections of prayers, and anthologies of various religions.

I should make clear that I have read through very few of the books mentioned in the bibliography. These are books that I dip into and expect to be dipping into perhaps for the rest of my life. For me they are too rich, too overwhelming, too demanding to be read through in just a few sittings. I will read an excerpt and mull it over and try to grasp its insight and occasionally pursue it in context and sometimes enter my own reactions to it in my thought journal.

The reader is invited to dip into these books in order to add historical dimension and richness to what is hopefully an already awakened spiritual life. All of them can be obtained either through used bookstores or interlibrary loan. Several are currently in print.

General Coverage

 

Arnold (1963)
Inner words for every day of the year,
chosen and arranged by Emmy Arnold.
Woodcrest, Rifton, N.Y.: Plough Publishing House, 1963.
>> Oriented to a Mennonite audience. "From the writings of Johann Christoph Blumhardt, Christoph Blumhardt, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Bodelschwingh, Eberhard Arnold, and others." -- T.p. verso

 

Blackburn (1954)
A treasury of the kingdom: an anthology,
compiled by E.A. Blackburn and others.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1954.
>> "Readings that would serve to bring home the eternal nature of the Christian message, which is not confined to the Bible alone, but is expressed in the lives and writings of countless Servants of the Kingdom." -- Foreword

 

Bonar (1866)
Words old and new: gems from the Christian authorship of all ages,
selected by Horatius Bonar.
Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1994.
>> First published in 1866 by James Nisbet.
>> Selected from the perspective of Scottish Protestant orthodoxy.

 

Bullett (1932)
The testament of light: an anthology of spiritual wisdom drawn from many ages and literatures,
by Gerald Bullett.
New York: Wings Books, 1994,
>> Originally published, New York: Knopf, 1932.
>> "This is an anthology of the religious spirit, a collection of utterances testifying to the 'divinity' in man, the inwardness of authority, the redemptive power of that love (within us, not elsewhere) 'whose service is perfect freedom.'" -- Preface
 
 
Curtis (1962)
The practical cogitator, or, The thinker's anthology,
selected and edited by Charles P. Curtis, Jr. [and] Ferris Greenslet.
3rd edition, revised and enlarged, with an introduction by John H. Fenley, Jr.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., c1962.
>> A personal selection, chiefly from Western sources and tending to the modern, on the great themes of life, starting with "Man in search of himself."

 

Fox (1983)
Original blessing: a primer in creation spirituality
presented in four paths, twenty-six themes, and two questions,
[by] Matthew Fox.
Santa Fe, N.M.: Bear, 1983.
>> More primer than quotation book, but included because of the plentiful and rich quotations at the beginning of each chapter from a variety of traditions, chiefly Western.

 

Gangulee (1940)
The testament of immortality: an anthology,
selected and arranged by N. G. [Nagendranath Gangulee]; with a preface by T. S. Eliot.
London: Faber and Faber, 1940.
>> "In all these testimonies from mystics, initiates, poets, saints and philosophers one finds positive assurance of life beyond death; and in varying degrees of inspiration they declare that death, although it appears to be the end of all, is but the prelude to life eternal." -- Preface.

 

Gangulee (1952)
Thoughts for meditation: a way to recovery from within: an anthology,
selected and arranged by N. Gangulee; with a preface by T.S. Eliot.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1952.
>> "Passages from Christian, Jewish, Moslem, Hindu and Buddhist scriptures and devotional writings." -- Preface

 

Gollancz (1951)
Man and God: passages chosen and arranged to express a mood about the human and divine,
by Victor Gollancz.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1951.
>> Compiled from the literature of the world.

 

Huxley (1945)
The perennial philosophy,
by Aldous Huxley.
New York: Harper, 1945.
>> Selections drawn from multiple religious traditions arranged under various headings to illustrate "the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being." -- Introduction

 

J. E. (190-?)
The fellowship of hearts,
compiled by J. E.
New York: Hubbell Publishing Co., [190-?]
>> Quotations from J. Ruskin, H. B. Stowe, D. Webster, T. Carlyle, W. Wordsworth, R. W. Emerson, H. W. Longfellow, George Eliot, C. H. Spurgeon, C. Kingsley, E. B. Browning, H. W. Beecher, G. Macdonald, Amiel, J. G. Whittier, B. Jowett, C. G. Rosetti, and others, with a sprinkling of some ancient authors, like Confucius and Plato.
>> Only names are cited.

 

Leavens (1927)
Great companions: readings on the meaning and conduct of life from ancient and modern sources,
compiled by Robert French Leavens; collaborator Mary Agnes Leavens.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1927-1941. 2 volumes.
>> "Includes passages from the sacred books of the great religions; selections from Greeks and Romans; expressions of the long struggle for human liberty and solidarity; thoughts of seers and prophets, poets and philosophers, of courageous men and women -- of those who have served their fellow-men intimately, and with distinction; and writings of recent times which throw upon the way of man the light of the widely increased knowledge of history and science." -- Preface
 
 
 
Moore (1996)
The education of the heart: readings and sources for Care of the soul, Soul mates, and The re-enchantment of everyday life,
edited by Thomas Moore.
New York, NY: HarperCollins, c1996.
>> "The selections come from Greek tragedies and ancient magical texts; from the Renaissance philosophers so often mentioned in Moore's earlier books [the books listed in the title], such as Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Robert Fludd, and others; and from modern archetypal psychologists such as C. G. Jung and James Hillman." -- Dust jacket.
>> Section headings: The rediscovery of the soul -- The art and craft of living -- Everyday religion -- The art of dwelling -- Intimacies -- The common life -- Passages -- Enchantment.
 
 
Phillips (1960)
The choice is always ours: an anthology on the religious way, chosen from psychological, religious, philosophical, poetical and biographical sources,
edited by Dorothy Berkley Phillips; co-edited by Elizabeth Boyden Howes [and] Lucille M. Nixon.
Revised and enlarged edition.
New York: Harper, 1960.
>> Selected chiefly from Western sources, with more from Carl G. Jung than any other single individual.

 

Siu (1968)
The portable dragon: the Western man's guide to the I Ching,
by R. G. H. Siu.
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, c1968.
>> The I Ching is the ancient Chinese "Book of Changes." Its purpose "is to elucidate the 64 hexagrams ... which represent the varieties of the human condition. It began as a book of oracles and divinations (based on the ritual selection of the propitious hexagram by a random process). It later became a book of advice on how to behave, govern, compete, find tranquility, contemplate the future -- how to live and let live. In Confucian times, it came to be regarded as the repository of distilled philosophical and psychological insight." -- Cover.
>> "In all, about 700 quotations by over 650 authors from nearly 60 countries over a period of 6000 years have been used" to illustrate the I Ching. -- Preface
 
 
Tileston (1934)
Daily strength for daily needs,
selected by Mary Wilder Tileston; with a foreword by William Lawrence.
New York: Grosset & Dunlap, [foreword 1934]
(The Family inspirational library)
>> Selections from world literature to the beginning of the 20th century.

 

Van de Weyer (1991)
Celtic fire: the passionate religious vision of ancient Britain and Ireland,
edited by Robert Van de Weyer.
New York: Doubleday, 1991.
>> Excerpts from figures of Celtic Christianity, including Patrick, Brigid, Brendan, Columba, and Hilda.

 

Wassil (1965)
The wisdom of Christ,
[by] Aly Wassil.
New York: Harper & Row, c1965.
>> The words of Jesus (4 B.C.-A.D. 29) set beside Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, and secular sources.
 
 
Watson (1962)
Light from many lamps,
edited and with commentary by Lillian Eichler Watson.
New York: Simon and Schuster, c1951.
>> Covers chiefly Western literature from ancient to modern times.
>> Section headings: Happiness & the enjoyment of living -- Faith & inner calm -- Courage & the conquest of fear -- Confidence & achievement -- Self-discipline & the development of character -- Personality & relationship to others -- Peace of heart and mind -- Love & family life -- Contentment in later years -- Hope for the future.
 
 
Williams (1941)
The new Christian year,
chosen by Charles Williams.
London; New York: Oxford University Press, 1941.
>> Extracts from teachers and saints of the Christian church arranged "according to the Sundays and chief Holy Days of the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England." Compiled by one of the leading lights of the literary group known as the Inklings.
>> See also The Passion of Christ (1939), a selection by Williams of passages illustrative of the suffering of Jesus Christ that preceded his death on the cross.

Poetry

 

Albertson (1932)
Lyra mystica: an anthology of mystical verse,
edited by Charles Carroll Albertson; introduction by William Ralph Inge.
New York: Macmillan Co., 1932
>> From Plato to Tagore, but the majority of the poems are by English and American authors.

 

Cecil (1940)
The Oxford book of Christian verse,
chosen and edited by Lord David Cecil.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940.
>> Limited to English writers, from the 14th century to the early 20th century.

 

Davie (1981)
The new Oxford book of Christian verse,
chosen and edited by Donald Davie.
Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
>> English authors from the 7th century to the latter part of the 20th century. Overlaps considerably with Cecil (1940).

 

Hill (1923)
The world's great religious poetry,
edited by Caroline Miles Hill.
New York: Macmillan Co., 1923.
>> "Ranges from the Psalms of David and the Hymn of Cleanthes to the latest free verse.... the spiritual assets of mankind have never been gathered together that we may see what they are. This book is a step in that direction.... The idea of God is the core of the collection." -- Preface

 

Hirschfield (1994)
Women in praise of the sacred: 43 centuries of spiritual poetry by women,
edited by Jane Hirschfield.
New York, NY: HarperCollins, c1994.
>> "Beginning with the hymns of the world's earliest identified author (a Sumerian moon priestess) and continuing to the first half of the twentieth century, it draws from the major religious traditions of East and West as well as from several indigenous cultures, Among the seventy women included are mystics and healers, spiritual teachers and mothers, saints and rebels, freed slaves and queens." -- Dust jacket

 

Mitchell (1989)
The enlightened heart: an anthology of sacred poetry,
edited by Stephen Mitchell.
New York: Harper & Row, c1989.
>> "Beginning with selections from the earliest sacred masterpieces -- the Upanishads, the Book of Psalms, and the Bhagavad Gita (in new translations by the editor) -- this ... anthology also contains poems by the Taoist and Buddhist masters; Rumi and other Sufi masters; Christian poets such as Francis of Assisi, Dante, and George Herbert; [William] Blake, [Walt] Whitman, Emily Dickinson, [Rainer Maria] Rilke, and other modern poets." -- Dust jacket

 

Nicholson (1921)
The Oxford book of English mystical verse,
chosen by D.H.S. Nicholson and A.H.E. Lee.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921.
>> "We have felt it desirable to admit any poetry written in English, from whatever country the poet may have hailed, as well as any native poetry written in Great Britain and Ireland in some other tongue than English, and subsequently translated." -- Introduction

 

Rothenberg (1968)
Technicians of the sacred: a range of poetries from Africa, America, Asia & Oceania,
edited with commentaries by Jerome Rothenberg.
Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, c1968.
>> "The present collection grew directly out of a pair of 1964 readings of 'primitive and archaic poetry.'" -- Pre-face

Collections of Excerpts from Particular Authors: Some Notable Examples

 

Blumhardt (1980)
Thy kingdom come: a Blumhardt reader,
edited by Vernard Eller.
Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., c1980.
>> Translation of excerpts from sermons and discussions by Johann Christoph Blumhardt (1805-1880) and his son Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt (1842-1919), leaders of a Christian retreat center at Bad Boll in southwestern Germany. Emil Brunner, the reknowned Neo-Orthodox theologian, identified Christoph Blumhardt as one of the two greatest predecessors of the Neo-Orthodox movement. Cf. Introduction, pages xiii-xiv.
>> Original sources of only some of the selections are identified.
 
 
Kierkegaard (1963)
The living thoughts of Kierkegaard,
presented by W. H. Auden.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1963
>> Søren Aabye Kiekegaard (1813-1855) was a Danish philosopher, a writer on theology, and the father of Existentialism.
>> Originally published: New York: David McKay Co., 1952.
>> "A midland book MB 47."
>> No page citations are given.
>> Section headings for the excerpts: Prefatory aphorisms -- The present age -- The aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious -- The subjective thinker -- Sin and dread -- Christ the offence -- Epilogue.
 
 
Kierkegaard (1968)
Kierkegaard: the difficulty of being Christian,
texts edited and introduced by Jacques Colette; English version by Ralph M. McInerny and Leo Turcotte.
Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, c1968.
>> Translation from the French of: Kierkegaard et la difficulté d'être Chrétien (1964)
>> Page citations are given.
>> Section headings for the excerpts: Autobiographical -- An existential itinerary: From ignorance to revelation -- An existential itinerary: From Anguish to love.
 
 
Lewis (1989)
The quotable Lewis,
Wayne Martindale and Jerry Root, editors.
Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, c1989.
>> Excerpts from the works of Clive Staples Lewis (1893-1963), the famed Anglican apologist for Christianity.
>> Page citations are given.

 

Macdonald (1907)
The pocket George Macdonald: being a choice of passages from the various works of George Macdonald,
made by Alfred H. Hyatt.
Boston: Small, Maynard, 1907.
(The Pocket book series)
>> Excerpts from the works of George Macdonald (1824-1905), the Scottish novelist and poet, who was also for a while a Congregational minister. His works are uneven, but his insights, many of which appear in this book, are often, to use a 1960's term, "mind-blowing."
>> The "Table of Contents," actually a first-line index, in the back lists sources but without page citations.
 
 
Macdonald (1947)
George Macdonald: an anthology,
by C.S. Lewis.
New York: Macmillan, 1947.
>> Sometimes chapters are referenced, but page citations are not given.

 

Proust (1948)
The maxims of Marcel Proust,
edited, with a translation, by Justin O'Brien.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1948.
>> Marcel Proust (1871-1922) was a French author, who is reknowned especially for his series of novels called À la recherche du temps perdu, translated as Remembrance of things past. He is included here as an example of a literary author with deep insight into human nature.
>> Four hundred and twenty-eight excerpts, the French text and English translation appearing on opposite pages.
>> Section headings: Man -- Society -- Love -- Art -- Time and memory -- Index of the sources of the maxims.

 

Teilhard de Chardin (1970)
Let me explain,
[by] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin; texts selected and arranged by Jean-Pierre Demoulin; translated by René Hague and others.
New York: Harper & Row, c1970.
>> Translation of: Je m'explique (1966).
>> Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit priest, scientist, and philosopher, who embraced both Christianity and biological evolution and who envisioned a spiritual destination with regard to the evolution of humankind.
>> "Sets forth and summarizes, for the first time, the whole of Teilhard de Chardin's thought." -- Back cover.
>> Page citations are given.

 

Teilhard de Chardin (1975)
On suffering,
[by] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
London: Collins, 1975.
>> Translation of: Sur la souffrance (1974).
>> Page citationss are given.

 

Teilhard de Chardin (1984}
On love & happiness,
[by] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
San Francisco: Harper & Row, [1984]
>> Translation of: Sur l'amour (1967) and Sur le bonheur (1966).
>> Page citations are given.

 

A Small Armload of Reference Books

 

Chapin (1956)
The book of Catholic quotations,
compiled from approved sources, ancient, medieval and modern;
selected and edited by John Chapin.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1956.

 

Draper (1992)
Draper's book of quotations for the Christian world,
[compiled by] Edythe Draper.
Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, c1992.

 

Mead (1965)
The encyclopedia of religious quotations,
edited and compiled by Frank S. Mead.
Westwood, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell Co., c1965.

 

Parrinder (1989)
A dictionary of religious & spiritual quotations,
compiled by Geoffrey Parrinder.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.

 

Perry (1986)
A treasury of traditional wisdom,
presented by Whitall N. Perry; preface by Huston Smith.
San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986.
>> Originally published, New York: Simon and Schuster, c1971. The insightful preface by Huston Smith is new to the 1986 edition.

 

Seldes (1985)
The great thoughts,
compiled by George Seldes.
New York: Ballantine Books, 1985.

Bibliography composed, November 1, 1997

Posted, November 2, 1997; new url, January 28, 2004; last modification, Janaury 28, 2004

Copyright ©1997-2004 by Norman E. Anderson

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