Top 10 quotes of 2010: Brevity (for the most part) is the soul of notoriety
Having your words etched in the collective consciousness is great, huh? Maybe not. Take a look at these doozies from the waning year.
To quote or not to quote, that is the question.
That’s because Yale Law School Associate Librarian Fred Shapiro released his fifth annual list of the “most notable quotations of the year.”
“The key thing to realize about the list of notable quotations of the year is that this is an update to The Yale Book of Quotations,” Shapiro says. “By ‘most notable quotations of the year’ I mean, not necessarily that these are eloquent or admirable quotations, but rather that they are famous or important or revealing of the spirit of our times.”
This list certainly accomplishes his goal.
There are some common elements in most of the quotes. The majority are short, with the two top quotes at just five and six words each. They also tend to be related to negative situations.
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