Thursday, March 10, 2011



Quotes & Saying about Philately & Stamps
  • "Neither rain, nor snow, nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" - Greek historian Herodotus wrote about the Persian messengers in his history of the Persian Wars. This is inscribed on a stone face of the New York post office building.
  • "The collecting of stamps brings untold millions of people of all nations into greater understandings of their world neighbours" - Francis Cardinal Spellman of America while laying the foundation stone of Cardinal Spellman Museum at Weston on July 27, 1972.
  • "Consider the postage stamp, its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there" -  American humorist John Billings.
  • "The philatelist will tell you that stamps are educational, that they are valuable, that they are beautiful. This is only part of the truth. My notation is that the collection is a hedge, a comfort, a shelter into which the sorely beset mind can withdraw. It is orderly, it grows towards completion, it is something that can't be taken away from us" - Clifton Fadiman in Any Number Can Play.
  • "But, remember, I wish to have the best collection, not just one of the best collections in England" - King George V to JA Tilleard, Honorary Secretary, Philatelic Society, on appointing him as Philatelist to the King.
  • "For seventeen years he did nothing at all, but kill animals and stick in stamps" - Sir Harold Nicholson (1886-1968) in Diaries and Letters about King George V.
  • "All science is either Physics or stamp collecting." - Erenst Rutherford physicist and Noble Laureate.
  • "As you see gentleman I am but a postman. It is no exaggeration. In the old days it was my job to deliver the mails .."  JRD Tata. Quoted in a book on British Airways - commemorating the 50th anniversary of Tata's history making flight of 1912.
  • "What should I do? I think the best thing is to order a stamp with my face on it." - Charles, Emperor of Austria 1882-1922 on learning of his accession to the throne.
  • "Next time ask my barber to approve them before you issue stamps with my portrait" - King Christian X of Denmark. In 1924 he was shown commemoratives of 300th anniversary of Danish Posts. The stamps showed his portrait facing the left and the right and his hair parted once to the left and next to the right.
  • "Swifter are their movements that the eye can follow. they know not the difference between right and left, neither know what a letter is nor are its contents divulged to them; yet speedily they carry through the task entrusted to them. They have charged themselves to keep faith and therefore they have been granted the garland that festoons their necks" - Hohn-eddin-ban-Abdeldakar, an Egyptian said this praising the carrier pigeons some 800 years ago.
  • "Among other things good and bad that modern civilisation had produced, surely the postal system which covers the whole world, is one of its most benficial activities. It affects every individual whereever he may be in the wide world connecting him with millions of others. That connecting link is the postal system which has grown from age to age, till it is what we see today" - Jawaharlal Nehru as a foreword to Mulk Raj Anand's book Story of the Post Office.
  • "Stamp Collecting dispels boredom, enlarges our vision, broadens our knowledge, makes us better citizens and in innumerable ways, enriches our lives" - President Roosevelt
  • "Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste". - W. B. Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet, playwright. 



The postage stamp is a flimsy thing
No thicker than a beetle's wing
And yet it will roam the world for you
Exactly where you tell it to - EV Lucas