Anthony Waterman wrote: "What's wrong with one-liners if they embody genuine, and relevant, factual information? It seems to me that these can be more valuable than extended but ill-informed dissertations about the present relevance of dead economists." There is nothing wrong with one-liners when they give the context/quote from the message to which they apply. The ones which appear on the list like so many comets are sometimes difficult to place or decipher. And as for the dead economists, the field would be quite dead without them and leaving particular judgments aside, isn't their relevance to the present one aspect of legitimate inquiry in the history of economics? Sumitra Shah