“Of all sexual perversions, chastity is the strangest” said Anatole France the French writer. Someone said similar on a podcast a few days ago, incorrectly attempting to quote him. He may have said the wrong words but it was close enough to perk my attention and do a little research of old Monsieur France. He appears to be another of these intellectuals living around the turn of the nineteenth century. Involved in the societal issues of the day, he took on the state a few times, especially in regards the Dreyfus Affair. This was an incident when nationalistic and anti-Semitic elements of the French army made a scapegoat of a Jewish soldier and had him wrongly convicted of murder. France though seems to be an infinitely quotable person and while I was drawn in with the one above it is only apt to throw a few more in.
“Until one has loved an animal a part of one’s soul remains unawakened“
“If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing“
“It is human nature to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion“
Quotes are great things. It takes a tiny snapshot of a thought and imprints it forever. There is an intensity to them that allows people to feel they understand a whole concept or person with nothing but a short sentence. We use them to justify opinions of a person, to discredit a lifetimes worth of work with one passing comment, to immortalise a version of someone. I have wanted to tattoo a million moments of wisdom all over my body despite knowing better. I finally succumbed a few years ago in my own way and have “estas como una cabra” on my arm. It is a Spanish expression which translates as “you’re like a goat” and is intentionally the antithesis of tattooed wisdom. Yet we keep on coming back to quotes.
I used one recently when writing a piece on here bashing Winston Churchill. His quote was from 1937 and I used it to justify my accusation of racism. Yet I would be curious to hear his opinion in 1945 after the horrors of murderous racism became real to the world. Does that mean we form an opinion of his character at the end of his life, at a certain point in his life or try to balance out an impression of his character from squashing everything he ever said and did into one little box. We evolve over time in who we are and how we think but quotes freeze a moment in our lives and are used to define us for eternity. I suspect there won’t be many academics pouring over this body of work at any point but were they to I don’t doubt they could find enough ridiculous things I’ve said to justify creating an impression that I am three or four different versions of myself and morality. But then we live so many versions of ourselves in our lives that this must surely be inevitable. How then when quotes are everything can we ever let these parts of ourselves go.
“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another” – Anatole France
Observations and Misunderstandings 