THE COMPENDIUM

This Compendium is conceived, created, edited — curated, if you will — by me, P. N. GWYNNE, which is a pseudonym. 

More about the pseudonymous me here:

P. N. Gwynne

This Compendium of personally-collected quotations was (and continues to be) originally intended for my own use and diversion, and as such it never concerned itself with – and thus never pretended, or laid claim, to – the slightest nod towards evidentiary rigor or total documentary exactitude.

In other words, it is not (to put it mildly) a scholarly work of any kind. Rather, all it was ever meant to be was an if-possible amusing, sometimes enlightening and always enlivening reading and conversational companion.

But I do hope it is of some use to conversationalists, students, debaters, writers, and civic-minded citizens of sanity and discernment.

CLAIMS AND DISCLAIMERS

 The only claim I do make for it is that every single quotation entered herein is one that I actually read (or in a few cases heard) somewhere, and transcribed in good faith.*

In many cases I go on to describe the identified author, often including the place and time the statement appeared. But by no means do I do any or all of this in all cases. (It’s all been rather arbitrary and haphazard, I’m afraid). So the reader/user has to frequently work a bit, not least in some of the more heavily contributed subjects, such as “Islam” and “Political Correctness”.

Also, sometimes an author is identified as holding a position which may have changed since the quotation was entered; (I try to keep this up to date, but necessarily often fall short. Sorry ‘bout that — as we used to say in You-know-where-nam.)

Moreover, this Compendium, (being a personal effort originally meant only for my own use), necessarily reflects quite a few other idiosyncrasies and peculiarities:

 WHAT’S IN THE COMPENDIUM, AND WHAT’S NOT.

+ For instance, there are no entries by “anonymous”. As a serious quotist, I don’t consider Mr. Anonymous to be a serious player in this game. And, indeed, as far as I can remember, there are only six “non-people” who are quoted anywhere in here: in one case it’s a blog (whose author has managed to evade my detection) called “Ace Of Spades”, and in another case it’s an amusing something-or-other called “The Goldman-Sachs Elevator”; there’s also something from the Wall Street Journal on the US State Dept., a bit from the (UK) Spectator on immigration, an item from the BBC Home Service, and, oh, a KGB Training Manual is quoted somewhere in here, as well as, believe it or not, the US Office of Management and Budget. Oh, and an item on Russia from the 1782 Encyclopedia Britannica.

+ There are hardly no song lyrics – there’s one by Alvin Lee of the English band “Ten Years After”, one by the Kinks’ Ray Davies on The Beatles, one by Mott The Hoople’s Ian Hunter on suicide, and a couple from the lyricist of my own favorite band, Procol Harum – but otherwise, no song lyrics to speak of.

+ There are very few movie or TV quotes, and those few that do appear are, wherever possible, attributed to the screenwriter. Although there’s one entry by Bart Simpson (on Accounting) and another by Marge Simpson (on France).

+ There are only two untranslated quotes in a foreign language, both in Froggish — something by my late brother Alan on women, and a neat little rhyme by Alfred de Musset, on “Life”. Oh, and there’s one Froggy “Subject” category — “Raison d’Etat” (a rather nifty concept which I define somewhere in there.)

+ There’s virtually nothing from the Bible (except for one absolute pisser from JC himself on Pacifism, … and I remember there’s one from Ecclesiastes, and I believe Saint Paul chimes in at one point, as do Saint Augustine and a chap called Ezekiel) — oh, and there’s one from the Koran (on “Men & Women", of all things)… and only three from Shakespeare (and one of those is, funnily enough, on “Quotations”). Even that most quotable of fellows, Oscar Wilde, only merits a few entries (and not the usual ones). And that Contemporary Ambulatory Aphorism, Dave Barry, whose every utterance could theoretically have been quoted here, only makes it into this collection a handful of times. Oh, and I believe there’s one “Old Chinese Proverb”, but otherwise, there are no proverbs or “sayings”, either. And practically no pottery (as I like to call poetry).

+ Some idiosyncracies/curiosities/anomalies are fairly predictable – almost all the entries under “Greece”, for instance, are by my old “pal” Taki Theodoracopulos (whose spelling I had to arbitrarily decide on, like “Gaddafi”, after going through veritable thickets of differing possibilities).

+ Also, in many cases, my comments on a particular quote, and/or its author, reflect the situation at the time I saw that quotation and entered it. Now, in a few cases, those comments have been “updated”, but in most cases they have not; (so they should be read and digested with that in mind). To attempt to keep all my comments timely and “current” would obviously be a ludicrous, and fruitless, proposition.

+ Obviously, in the quotation biz, the general adage is “the shorter the better”, and unfortunately, all-too many entries in The Compendium are too long. But that’s not my fault, that’s the authors’ fault. Generally, I’ve avoided excessively long quotations – with only a small handful of exceptions: two of those are from the wise and scholarly Victor Davis Hanson (one on “Education” and the other on “Political Correctness”); there are a few quite long ones on "Names"; a longish one on “Espionage” by David Thomas; another longish one on “Blacks” by the Reverend James Manning, and there’s another spectacular, practically essay-length contribution from my favorite actor, Michael Caine, on “Communism”.

+ And finally, a word on the ideological tenor of this whole project, and the preponderance of some quote-authors on it:

I don’t call myself a “right-winger” or even a “conservative” – I prefer the term “anti-Leftist” or, better yet, “reactionary”. Whatever.  (My own political views have remained pretty much unchanged since they began to be formed in 1956, during the Hungarian anti-communist uprising, when I was ten years old.) The point is, I have not experienced any “ideological wandering”, or “drifting”, or “growth”, or any of that crap, in my entire life – but many of my erstwhile, or one-time favorite political commenters have. Thus, there are a huge amount of quotes from such writers as Jonah Goldberg (who, very tellingly, has gone from Fox to CNN) and Kevin D. Williamson -- and even the late, sainted P. J. O’Rourke -- writers who I used to read regularly and admire greatly. Unfortunately, while I may still admire them as writers, the advent of President Trump... let’s just say short-circuited their minds, banjaxed their judgment and caused them to re-examine their own political views and priorities, so that not only do I not quote them nearly so often anymore (if at all), but, more damagingly to our purposes, their current views often contradict or negate their earlier ones. (As Jonah himself said, on 16 Feb '24 -- "I’ve been revisiting a lot of my long-held views.")
But nevertheless, they said those earlier statements, and, as far as I’m concerned, those quotes stand.

 * CLAIMS AND DISCLAIMERS: A FEW FINAL WORDS

Thus, given all the above, I will not respond to any queries of “When (or where) did he (or she or I) say that”? I read or heard it somewhere, and that’s good enough for me, punto basta.

(Amusingly enough, the most common response I get from {live} people quoted herein is “I don’t remember saying that”, to which I respond “Well that’s as may be – but you said it or wrote it, somewhere and at some point, because I don’t make these things up.”)

If, however, in the extremely unlikely event that it can be convincingly shown to me that an entry is mistaken, or blatantly mal-attributed, then I shall endeavor to set things right. I can be reached at: pngwynne59@gmail.com

But otherwise, I don’t want to hear any indignantly bogus guff from anyone that the “I” or “he” or “she” didn’t say or write xxxx. You (or he or she) did, because, trust me, I had – and still have – better things to do than make up words to put in people’s (much less your!) mouths.

Having said all this, I will admit that one or two quotes in this vast compendium are genuinely questionable as to their authenticity (for example, one under “War” by Churchill), and when they occur, I explain the problematic circumstances behind their inclusion.

Finally, I realize that the danger in simply quoting others is that one can thereby (often deliberately) omit the context in which the words in question were expressed — well, that may be true enough, but then again, therein lies the piquancy of the whole exercise.

Above all – and to return to where this Statement begins – if this whole project is informed by anything, it’s “good faith” .