1001 Quotations To Inspire You Before You Die is full of smart remarks – not just sassy one-liners (although there are plenty of those), but also more considered, philosophical epigrams that make us pause and reflect on a range of profound topics.

Each quotation is accompanied by an insightful account of its meaning and the historical context in which it was first uttered or written. Some famous quotations are straightforward, but many need contextualising – it’s often not exactly what was said, but who said it, and in what context, that is more important. Many oft-quoted remarks open up whole new worlds of thought and interpretation. What, for example, did Voltaire mean when he wrote ‘If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him’? – was he hinting at his own atheism (unlikely, given the age in which he lived) or making a more subtle point about the difficulty of apprehending the Almighty? This book looks into these and a host of other such questions, and takes the reader from the source material into illuminating discussions of its wider significance.

We all love quotations – we use them to make our points, to plead our cases and to justify our opinions, as well as to honour, glorify, motivate, incite, besmirch, bewitch and beguile. 1001 Quotations To Inspire You Before You Die will help you do all that and more.