Selected entries from Bartlett’s Unfamiliar Quotations (first edition):

Socrates (469 – 399 B.C.)

“I didn’t know you could make tea from hemlock.”

Jesus (ca. 1 – 33)

“Now after I’m gone, don’t go adding a bunch of elaborate rituals.”

Christopher Columbus (1451 – 1506)

“Who the hell set the course west?”

William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616)

“”rancis, would you mind lending me a hand with these plays?”

John Milton (1608 – 1674)

“Paradise Gone? Paradise Misplaced? Paradise Missing? Damn, this title is elusive.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826)

“That bastard son of Adams’ will probably win the Presidency even though he didn’t get the most votes.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865)

“Mary, I told you these half-price theater tickets were no good.”

John D. Rockefeller (1839 – 1937)

“What the hell are we going to do with a million barrels of oil?”

Adolph Hitler (1889 – 1945)

“No, seriously, some of my best friends are Jews.”

Lyndon Johnson (1908 – 1973)

“What pleases me most is a consensus arrived at through reasoned and gentlemanly discourse.”

Ronald Reagan (1911 – 2004)

“The national debt’s tripled. When is this trickle down crap gonna kick in?”

Richard Nixon (1913 – 1994)

“John, Bob…I feel the fairest thing to do is release all the tapes.”

John F. Kennedy (1917 – 1963)

“Ask not what your President can do for you; ask what position you can assume for your President.”

Queen Elizabeth II (1926 – )

“Remind me again, Philip, why we had children.”

George W. Bush (1946 – )

“They voted me in again? And they say I’m stupid!”

Bill Clinton (1946 – )

“What this country needs is a good, self-lubricating cigar.”

Al Gore (1948 – )

“I categorically deny, refute and gainsay any allegations to the effect that I am boring.”

Mel Gibson (1956 – )

“No, seriously, some of my best friends are Jews.”