Why we love a good quote — Just Saying by Hugh Mackay

Hugh Mackay
Nov 19
2 min read

Read an article penned by Hugh Mackay, author of Just Saying.

Most of us are fascinated by the journeys of explorers who, by pushing boundaries and opening up new frontiers, have helped us appreciate the scope and complexity of our physical world.

We generally feel the same way about scientists—geologists, biologists, botanists, astronomers, astrophysicists, medical researchers—who push boundaries and open up new frontiers in our understanding of life itself.

The mind has its boundaries and frontiers, too. Our mental life is its own rich source of adventure and exploration as we strive to improve our understanding of the inner world of often-conflicting emotions, motivations and aspirations, and to imagine ways of living a more fulfilling life.

Perhaps that explains our fascination with quotations that offer us glimpses into the minds of explorers of ‘inner space’—philosophers, psychologists, mystics, prophets, creative artists. Their wisdom and insight can help us make more sense of ourselves and each other, rather like signposts that guide our journey towards understanding this wildly complex and endlessly fascinating thing called human nature.

Some quotations lodge so firmly in our minds that they become part of our world-view, like ‘borrowed wisdom’. We love to share them with other people, not to make ourselves sound smart (well . . . perhaps sometimes), but because we’ve found a set of words that succinctly expresses something we might have been struggling to articulate for ourselves. In other cases, we come across a quotation that suddenly strikes us as expressing an idea we hadn’t previously thought of, but now recognise as something we’re pleased to have learnt about ourselves.

We don’t always need to know the origin of a quotation in order to appreciate its value. The source of many of the quotes we use in everyday conversation—from Shakespeare’s ‘There’s a method to my madness’, to the Bible’s ‘Pride comes before a fall’—may be forgotten, or were never known, having long since floated free of their textual moorings.

You may not agree with all the quotes in this book (and neither do I). I hope some of them will provoke you into thinking your own very different thoughts. As it says in the title: Just Saying . . .

Writing these reflections has felt a bit like the beginning of a conversation . . . now it’s over to you.