Book Of Biblical Quotations

There are few things more wonderfully optimistic than the human belief that somewhere, hidden among several thousand years of scripture, there exists the perfect quotation for every conceivable situation. Book of Biblical Quotations by Anthony J. Castagno, published in 1981 by Pickering and Inglis, is the noble result of precisely that conviction: a carefully assembled treasury of biblical wisdom designed for sermons, speeches, reflections, letters, awkward conversations with relatives, and possibly moments of profound existential collapse beside the airing cupboard.

And what a gloriously specific publishing genre this is.

Before search engines arrived to reduce all human knowledge to frantic keyword panic, people actually owned quotation books. Entire shelves of them. Quotations about friendship. Quotations about leadership. Quotations about gardening. Quotations for weddings, funerals and mildly disappointing retirement dinners. Somewhere in Britain, for much of the twentieth century, there was always a respectable person reaching for a reference book in order to locate an appropriately uplifting verse before writing in a sympathy card.

This volume belongs proudly to that tradition.

Anthony J. Castagno has done the hard work so you do not have to spend three hours wandering through Leviticus looking for something suitable to include in the parish newsletter. The result is a deeply practical little volume that also becomes, almost accidentally, a fascinating portrait of how people once engaged with scripture: not merely as doctrine, but as a living reservoir of language, comfort, authority and occasionally devastatingly good one-liners.

Because the Bible, whatever one’s beliefs, really does contain extraordinary quotable material. It has poetry, rage, despair, joy, vengeance, hope, livestock regulations, apocalyptic visions and enough dramatic dialogue to sustain civilisation indefinitely. Modern self-help books generally manage about 240 pages explaining how to drink water mindfully. Ecclesiastes simply arrives, announces that everything is vanity, and leaves again like an exhausted Victorian uncle.

Published by Pickering and Inglis — a name that instantly conjures dusty evangelical bookshops and sensible tweed jackets — this 1981 edition radiates the quiet confidence of old religious publishing. No glossy marketing slogans. No “unlock your potential”. Just a solid reference work produced by people who assumed readers possessed both patience and bookshelves.

Condition is good, which is impressive considering quotation books tend to lead surprisingly eventful lives. They are not passive shelf ornaments. They get consulted repeatedly, carried into studies, left beside typewriters, balanced on lecterns and occasionally attacked with underlining pens by enthusiastic clergy. One suspects this copy may once have belonged to somebody who genuinely cared about finding exactly the right verse for exactly the right occasion — a concept both admirable and faintly terrifying.

There is also something irresistibly charming about the pre-digital practicality of the whole enterprise. Today we type vague emotional states into search bars at 2am. In 1981, one might calmly reach for Book of Biblical Quotations, consult the index under “Perseverance” or “Tribulation”, and proceed with considerably more dignity.

A delightful oddity for collectors of religious books, lovers of vintage reference works, students of biblical literature, or anyone who appreciates the fading world of earnest twentieth-century publishing. Even entirely secular readers may find themselves unexpectedly entertained by the sheer ambition of cataloguing divine wisdom into convenient thematic sections.

Crappy Old Books: preserving humanity’s paper attempts to organise eternity since absolutely ages ago.

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