Most of you know that I am around the bend bonkers about quotations. I love words that say things well--and one of the best quotations I ever heard was made up by my son. He said "Never argue with a quotation." What a brilliant quotation.
Recently I wrote a letter to a friend and within that letter I mentioned an old quotation that says that teachers are more important than parents because parents give life, but teachers give meaning to life. My friend proceeded to disagree, saying that he was not sure that teachers are more important, and anyway, parents are teachers too.
Of course he is right. Of course parents are teachers as well as parents. Of course parents are more important than teachers. After all, a teacher is only around for a few hours, and a pupil has many teachers. Of course he is right--but he should have tried a little harder to understand the quotation.
It is, finally too easy to argue with a quotation because all quotations, because thay are brief, must be wrong. To think a quotation says everything is to look for the world in a nutshell. A quotation is partial wisdom jammed into a memorable nutshell: it contains one well phrased truth,. Don't argue with that truth. Don't present your truth which of course is truer than the unusual truth uttered by the quotation. Of course parents are more important than teachers--but isn't it interesting, for just a second, to think that teachers are very, very important. Why a good teacher could inspire a student--could give meaning to a student's life.
And to agree with my friend--isn't even more wonderful when a parent acts as a teacher: then a parent gives life & gives meaning to that life.
I try hard to understand what a quotation says. I have said over and over that words shape my actions. If you say something well, I will remember it, and it will affect my behavior. But before I give you my example, you must understand that the person must be ready to understand the quotation.
For a long time I have believed that if you eat little, you sharpen your other senses. It seems so logical, but few of us practice such behavior: we tend to stuff ourselves with food: before we go to concerts, movies, dances. A world famous conductor once said that he always remembered how clear, how vivid, the angels statues seemed to him on the mornings when he had eaten nothing at all -- and because of this memory, he never ate on the day he was scheduled to conduct.. It was that clarity, that sharpness of vision that he sought to recapture by not eating.
I thought of his words when I was waiting to go to a dance. I wanted to enjoy the dance, but I was hungry. I knew I would enjoy the dance less keenly if I ate. I thought of the conductor's words. I went to the dance hungry.
Quotations are merely someone's experience encapsuled. I am one lonely man in a vast inexplicable universe. I like to hear messages I can comprehend, messages that might alter my behavior. I love certain quotations.
Copyright © 2004 Henry Morgenstein