‘Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.’ A famous quote, but who said it? Visit www.quotationsbook.com and you will find out it was 20th century American essayist and thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson. His quote sits alongside more than 42,000 others at this literary FlickR that not only serves up quotes by subject or author, but also allows users to share them to enlighten friends … or show off … or blog!

It’s rare to find a website dedicated to the written word in this digital day and age, where it’s all about videos and photos, but Amit Kothari has given up his consultancy job to create an interactive resource that is just that.

“The job had perks, but I felt I wasn’t giving enough back to the world, or really doing something about my own interests. I felt there was something else I had to do,” says the poet.

So in 2005 he began quotationsbook.com as a searchable quotation library, but dedicated his full time and savings in 2006 to develop it into the interactive quotation community it is today. The site is going to add many more social features in the next few weeks, and interestingly, wants to make a product like twitter.com where instead of logging “What I’m doing”, you can log “How I’m feeling” or “What I’m wondering”.

This week Amit threw his content out on to the Internet as a free resource – his business model currently depends on traffic.

To quote a famous film line: “Build it and they will come.” Amit has done that – a site to which he hopes to attract writers and researchers of all kinds with enticingly excellent and useful content. Whether it’s a report or a literary masterpiece, a quote always adds a certain gravitas. More so, he hopes to be the first to fully develop the social aspect of quotes.

“We have built a reliable and credible database, where many quotes come with references. You can even set the quote in the context of the speech in which it was said. With social features, we know that the real experts are our users, and they will police our content”, explains Amit.

“Good quality content is king on the web. We are building a valuable resource for which people will find their own uses. We still face accuracy problems, but we’ll get there.”

Businesses are already seeing the value in it – they have formed partnerships with other sites which use the library to enhance their own services in return for unique visitors to quotationsbook.com.

The next step is to create a UGC dimension. “Soon people will be able to contribute their own quotes – and create their own unique database of everyday quotes, which will be extremely localized. It will create a community around today’s sayings. It’s an exciting venture.”

“Do you ever wish you could note and share something wise or funny that your friend or parent said? We aim to open the fullest means of expressing individual knowledge and making it sociable with people who matter to you.

“Quotes are only the beginning of many potential ideas, including the first emotional search engine. You can type in ‘bored’ for example, and QB returns relevant quotes.”