14 FEBRUARY 1969, Page 26

Sir: 'Verify your quotations,' as Sir Denis Brogan reminds us

(Letters, 31 January), is a counsel we neglect at our peril. Ever so slightly pricked by the verb 'None of us are ...' in Sir Denis's quotation, I looked also at my Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Alas! For once, he seems to have misquoted: the ODQ has correct grammar, 'We are none of us infallible—not even the youngest of us.'

But even this dictionary lets us down if we seek to verify something like 'Even Homer sometimes nods.'