Or attributed to the Joyce Grenfells or Queen Elizabeth the First?
Moral sentiments nowadays are less connected with beheadings and World War.
Quotes should lean towards the times.
My hope or reading of modern times (for what it's worth) in 2013 (sorry if you are reading this in a hundred years time) is that community and kindness are on a comeback trail.
(I know it's not reflected by ITV2, but we can't rely on them to be a moral compass).
I sense (external) or feel (internal) a leaning towards this stuttering new stage of evolution.
You might see it in a wave of regret from a rich person or a touching display from the older generation who may have labelled it as normal behaviour rather than as an extra quality.
It is not that we are inherently a nice species. (Obviously, we are not). It's just that it is a necessary inevitability. We simply won't survive without it. It wasn't so long ago that many of our relatives gave their lives for us. But it's also not so long ago that people put children up chimneys. It's not lost on me that our chimneys have never been dirtier!
I want to believe that there is a growing recommendation for this named quality nevertheless. In small doses admittedly. After all, all this nonsense shouldn't block the true meaning of life - drugs, fags, booze, TV, domestic violence, and the freedom to do anything you like to anybody in the name of a random god of your choice - should it?
The best people of course reach such genteel conclusions before age or circumstance force them like a bad card sleight. In the case of the rich, it should be when they have collected enough money but not left it so late that they had to have its emptiness forced down their stupid throats, Duncan Bannatyne. It is not generous to give away a million pounds when you're a billionaire.
Kindness is only one rung to the full package - integrity.
If you believe in this momentum and the belief (or just the momentum) gathers speed - and it is far from clear that it will - then it will need to suck up everything in its path like a huge piece of rolling Blu-tack, before daring to stake a claim as being the full package. After all, integrity may soon be a bygone word of which an entire generation has never heard. (What say you future Internet archivist/historian of the 22nd century?).
These qualities certainly cannot be applied generally to the public perception of doctors, lawyers, police, nurses, politicians, business men or teachers. And no one would deny me adding men of the cloth or TV presenters on to that list.
Are these qualities a historical footnote or a quaintness that future historians might appreciate as they metal-detect fields for our fake Gucci buckles? (Did I say 'fields' - how naive!)
They are not even shared across continents.
Some would even argue that they are peculiarly British.
But the point was to talk about quotes...
I will give you a little quote. I've already given you one yesterday but I don't mind spoiling you at Easter. (Don't tell your father!)
This one touches on the familiar idea of living your dream. It is primarily relevant to the context of the television format known as The Voice. But a flexible mind can tease out a broader strand of meaning.
"Take advantage of the fact that our backs are turned.
Sneak up on us".
will.i.am.
The Voice, April 2013
This is a perfectly serviceable quote that might just as easily have been accredited to Sun Tzu (the great Chinese hip-hop producer).
Who decides the quote is quotable? (I know. It was me)
Who decides that a modern sentence is worthy of repeat? (Me again)
Even that it should achieve classic status. (You're embarrassing me!)
Who elects the quotable?
Perhaps in the past it was the Oxford English Dictionary but now ultimately it has to be the people.
The people decide. That's all there is.
People quote everybody everyday. It's called gossip.
You just need to identify the nugget.
I feel another project coming on .....
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