Member Reviews

This is a nice collection of quotes from different sources on different topics. It's not really a book you read cover to cover, but one you read a little bit every day, or dip in and out of in the different topics the author has arranged the selections. It makes a nice gift book for a college graduate.

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I absolutely love this book. Sometimes I need an appropriate quote to start a meditation I am leading or to put into a powerpoint deck at work to reinforce a concept and this one doesn't disappoint. It includes many well known quotes as well as many that were unfamiliar to me and I have found both useful. The categorization is also great to find what you need easily. They are also great when I just need some advice in a particular area and want a different point of view.

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Other People's Words is a wonderful resource to check into when you need something to help you in any situation. Need something to help you feel better, need some words to comfort a friend? This is the book for you!

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This book if full of impactful and life changing quotes. Great to read alone or in a group. Highly recommend. Especially loved the reflection to true life to humanize my feelings and relate. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

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This is such an great book full of thousands of quotes! I’ve collected quotes over the years and this book was just so nice to have them all in one place. There are quotes from all kinds of people and a quote for pretty much every situation. Thank you so much NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC.

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As someone who loves a good quote, I found this book to be a treasure chest of wisdom.

I found it very interesting that the author took quotes he had collected for years and organized them into categories. This must have taken a lot of time and I truly appreciated the work he did.

The author showed his love of quotes by going from jotting them on scraps of paper to typing them to eventually organizing them to create the sections of this book. The quotes are not only wonderful but they have inspired the author, his friends and family as well as many who have b\read his book.

I can see myself rereading this book many times over the years just to be reminded of other people's wise words.

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I love quotes and I'm a fan of writing some good ones down every now and then, but I'm not really sure how to rate this one to be honest. I didn't read all of them, as sometimes I would just skim through the pages/chapters as I found I couldn't get myself 'immersed' in the book. It wasn't something you could just sit down and read for an hour or so. Maybe a coffee table style of book or something you would just pick up and read a couple pages here and there.

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I too am a quote collector, so there is much I enjoyed about Seth Siegel's book Other People's Words. It is so interesting to me that while many of the best-known quotes came from a speech given by a famous person, others came into being simply as a reflective comment or note that became a pearl with the hearing and retelling. Some never expected their words to be remembered. Life is fascinating that way!

Kudos to Siegel for taking the time to organize the quotes he's saved for himself over the years. That is a quite an undertaking!

We can always learn from others, and some truths are universal. Four stars for this well-done collection.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for allowing me to read an advance review copy of the book. All opinions expressed here are my own.

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Siegel began collecting quotations as a high school student. He visited a high school in an affluent area of Long Island unlike his own crowded one in a mostly Jewish and Black neighborhood. He noticed quotations on the wall of the social studies classroom. He found them motivating and inspiring and realized their power. He wrote down two on a scrap of paper. That experience was a catalyst and he kept adding notes of scribbled quotations to his collection.

While in college, Siegel began revisiting his quotations, recopying and organizing them. He realized their influence over him as he internalized the ideas. He incorporated them into his developing worldview. He used them as reminders of thought and action as he pursued a career and life after business. Now he shares with us the wise and insightful sayings of hundreds of people.

I appreciate the quotations being divided into sections. Each one relates to a part of our lives. There are quotes on relationships, creativity, leadership, politics and more. Each quote can be a personal inspiration or a springboard for discussion in a group. They can be used to inspire others in a speech or across a cafe table.

Here are a few of the many I found thought provoking:
“If you're not happy where you are, you won't be happy where you aren't.” (Morton Kondracke)
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” (Eleanor Roosevelt)
“An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.” (Henry David Thoreau)
“We see things as we are, not as they are.” (Leo Rosten)

Siegel encourages us to create our own collection of what he calls intellectual companions. Some will last but some will drift away and no longer play an essential role in life. This book gives you a good place to start.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

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I love quotes and collect them like seashells. What Mr. Siegal has done is put them in order.

There are eleven different topics and several subtopics within those. No matter what you are dealing with someone somewhere has been there and has written something either witty enough or meaningful enough that you will be able to relate.

Most I had heard before, but a lot of them I have not, and was grateful I could borrow those.

A very interesting book with a really good forward by the author.

NetGalley/ May 4th, 2021 St. Martin’s Press

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This book is a compilation by the author of over a "thousand quotes from about 750 sources." Quotes are divided into 11 sections: our inner selves; becoming our best; taking charge; love, family, and friendship; creativity and ideas; arts and entertainment; government, politics, and power; money and business; the dark side; our fragile world; and doing good. Each section is then "further divided by thematically related categories." The purpose of the quote is to both expose to new ideas and possibly lead to self-exploration.
This is a good collection, with a wide variety of individuals being quoted. This would be a good book to gift, although it is not a typical gifty quote book (no illustrations or colorful designs, just pages of type).

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Seth Siegel and I have a common hobby, we both enjoy collecting quotations. Other People's Words: Wisdom for an Inspired and Productive Life is Siegel's collection of quotes that have been helpful to himself, his friends, family, and even a U.S. Senator. The book starts off with an introduction by Siegel where he explains when he started collecting quotes and why its important to him. He argues that this activity is important in order for you to have smart and wise people to help you journey through life.

Siegel's book is divided into 11 themed sections, within each section there are numerous subtopics, each subtopic contains several quotes. I was partial to the section on our inner lives, family, friends, and entertainment. I personally found numerous quotes to add to my commonplace book and I also saw some that I already had written down in my collection. Siegel's book has introduced me to new people such as Jean Cocteau, Anne Michaels, Friedrich Otto Hertz, just to name a few. Overall, I think its a good resource book and can be read a number of ways. Not every quote or section of quotes will speak or resonate with the reader but that is ok. The only thing that matters is that you find at least one quote that can inspire, encourage, or make you laugh. I sure did.

"We hoard quotations like amulets. They are charms against chaos, secret mantras for dark times, strings that vibrate forever in defiance of the laws of time and space. That they may be opaque or banal to everyone else is what makes them precious: they aren't supposed to work for everybody. They're there to work for us." -Louis Menand, "Notable Quotables" from the Feb. 19, 2007 issue of the New Yorker

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I love quotes. I’ve collected them for as long as I can remember, so when I saw this book I had to read it. This is a really diverse book of quotes. There’s definitely a quote for almost any situation.

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“Other People’s Words” by Seth M. Siegel is an excellent resource of 1,000 quotes that cover many topics, such as Humor, Friendship, Success, Creativity, Happiness and Planning. The quotes are organized by chapter, and there is also an index of each quote.

The author shares an interesting Introduction and Note to Reader, where he explains how he collected these quotes. It all began when he was in school and saw a quote on a classroom wall. That was the start of his awareness of other people’s values and thoughts, and how these quotes could serve to guide, teach and motivate him. From quotes scribbled on papers, he progressed to keeping track of them with notecards.

He also began to share these quotes with others as he saw the impact that a different take or insight could create. I liked that he has continued to collect quotes, and that he has reviewed and even removed quotes from his collection.

Many of these quotes will be familiar to readers. This is a handy resource for personal inspiration, or when a wise thought is needed. The book would make a wonderful gift, too.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press- Essentials for an advance review copy. This is my honest review.

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At first, I enjoyed this book. But the pages were just black and white boringness. There nothing to break up the section other than more black and white text. This book needs pazzazz.

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Other People’s Words by Seth M. Siegel

9781250132567

256 Pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Release Date: May 4, 2021

Nonfiction (Adult), Reference, Self-Help

The book is divided into eleven sections.

Section 1: Our Inner Selves
Section 2: Becoming Our Best
Section 3: Taking Charge
Section 4: Love, Family, and Friendship
Section 5: Creativity and Ideas
Section 6: Arts and Entertainment
Section 7: Government, Politics, and Power
Section 8: Money and Business
Section 9: The Dark Side
Section 10: Our Fragile World
Section 11: Doing Good

Each section contains quotes from famous people. This is the most important quote to me:

They came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up.

This is a book that can be left out and opened to a different page a day and read. It is very uplifting and soothing. What a beautiful book. I highly recommend it t everyone.

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Nice book of quotations to ponder or pull out when you need encouragement or a useful quote for a project. There are many more that could have been included but as I understand this is the author's personal collection.
I own several of these types books and enjoy reading them from time to time. One that has been around for a long time is "Apples of Gold" .This is the only one I have as an e book and I may just need to have it in a 'real book' format.. I was provided this book as an advanced reader copy and was under no obligation to write a review. The opinions expressed are my own. Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read this book.

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Seth Siegel has spent a LIFETIME of absorbing like an amoeba, thought-provoking quotes, which when shared take on a life of their own!
I believe this collection, which includes Siegel's interpretive and private remarks focusing on these quotations, is worth your time, during these often difficult and challenging times.
As this author brings the quotations to life, he also conveys their *sources along with a shared story derived from several different periods of his life since high school.
Structurally the text is set up into categories which are indexed in the back of the book and in the table of contents at the start, making it easy for the reader to navigate! Time saved during this Pandemic is valuable.
That said, I hope you value this gem as you peruse its pages!
Be sure to read the "Introduction" first, because Siegel shares the true essence of the POWER of these provocative quotes! Notice how each conveys wisdom and ALL of us may need extra resources and sources of wisdom these days. By the way, Siegel makes learning FUN as my granddaughter would say, and it is my hope that each of you can recognize the value in this collection, which Siegel through careful words makes efforts to impart !

Shared on Facebook & Twitter, and Amazon Kindle.

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I love the idea behind this book! It’s a collection of quotes covering topics of all kinds. I believe anyone, no matter your season in life, can find something to take away and apply to their situation. This is a book that should be kept on your nightstand to refer back to any time you feel the need for encouragement, motivation, or clarity.

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I'm not sure how to rate a book of a wide variety of quotes, but I did enjoy this. The author curated a good set that is well organized, and he includes a nice intro, inviting reader's favorite quotes. There are probably bigger, better books of quotes, but this collection worked for me. Recommended.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

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