The project

IN PRAISE OF QUOTATIONS — QUOTATIONS ON THE MNESEEK WEBSITE

By Julien Guerraz

“The often unexpected and always marvelous encounter between our intelligence and the intelligibility of the world.” — Philippe Meirieu

“Every man is the disciple of some profound saying.” — Victor Hugo

“It is a good thing to read books of quotations, because when quotations are engraved in your memory, they give you good thoughts.” — Winston Churchill

“Quotations in my work are like highwaymen who suddenly appear, fully armed, and rob the leisurely wanderer of his convictions.” — Walter Benjamin

“Maxims are the wisdom of nations.” — Beaumarchais

“As soon as a truth exceeds five lines, it becomes a novel.” — Jules Renard

“Quoting someone is more an act of humility than of vanity.” — Fabrice Luchini

 I believe I have the soul of a collector. Even as a child, I collected stamps, matchboxes… Today, I collect ideas through links and quotations. :)

Generally speaking, quotations are a simple and privileged way of entering into an author's thought. They often present its essence in a compact, condensed form (knowing an author's quotations does not exempt one from reading their books). But that is not all: sometimes they are witty observations concerning a very specific subject, treated almost as if in passing. In such cases, they are a long way from grand theories, yet they shed a particular light on a specific intellectual object. Moreover, this principle can be applied to virtually any subject.

[Major language dictionaries contain many quotations, generally drawn from the finest examples of literature. However, these quotations are intended to illustrate the “canonical” use of a given term. As examples, they are therefore as neutral and commonplace as possible.]

Whenever we call upon them, quotations act like lanterns, like stars guiding navigators, or like talismans we keep for years. Sometimes they put into words things we have already sensed. They often possess an accuracy bordering on magic.

The value of a system for collecting and storing quotations became apparent to me very early in the development of the Mneseek project, since this project is concerned with meaning: the meaning of things, the meaning we give to our lives… I believe the search for meaning is common to all cultures, even if its illusory nature is sometimes emphasized, as in Taoism or Zen Buddhism. Its corollary is study.

In practical terms, anyone registered on the website can submit whatever quotations they wish. In practice, 15 contributors have participated in the “Quotations” section, but the vast majority of the quotations on the site have been submitted by two contributors: monje (my friend Arnaud Louis) and myself (Judo73).

The quotations we have selected have been separated from their original contexts (works, speeches, etc.). This decontextualization amounts to a process of generalization and potentialization. Some people point out the dangers of removing ideas contained in a work from their context. Yet this customary precaution should not prevent us from doing what we need to do: taking ideas wherever we find them. A sentence can thus become a resource for thought, even a raw material. A quotation generally represents an idea: a very particular idea, or even a particular way of approaching a question or saying something about it. These ideas are most often original in the way they are expressed and are, in that sense, discoveries. Every book, every speech, and so on contains several of these ideas (sometimes many). Its overall argument can be summarized, but each of these ideas has a value of its own, insofar as it expresses something unique, and can be used for analysis and study. This is why grouping idea-based quotations according to “statements” (see the “Statements” section on the Mneseek website) is so fruitful: partial ideas relating to a subject, sometimes a very specific one, complement one another and provide a broader perspective.

We also view the collection of quotations as a starting point. The aim is to explain them, comment on them, connect them with one another—in short, to put them to use. This is one of the tasks we have set ourselves on the Mneseek website.

We have been guided by a particular principle: selecting the best quotations and those that are useful to us, rather than accumulating as many quotations as possible. Alongside this choice comes the decision to rank quotations according to relevance. Thus, whenever this has been possible, depending on our personal interests, our reading, and so forth, the collection of quotations devoted to each author has remained relatively small, and therefore of greater interest. This is very different from the approach taken by the various quotation websites on the internet, which generally aim for comprehensiveness. Very interesting quotations sit alongside less worthwhile ones, and sometimes downright poor ones. We stand by this approach of preferring quality to quantity. It is also important to emphasize that our collection work, although far from complete, remains limited in scope. Given the incredible richness of our intellectual heritage as a whole, we have indexed—and intend to index—only a limited number of quotations.

We have chosen to include proverbs and maxims among the quotations. Every country, every people, has its proverbs. In Beaumarchais's words, they constitute “the wisdom of nations.”

In our view, ranking quotations by relevance is justified on functional grounds. It is in no way a value judgment intended to establish a hierarchy among authors' ideas; rather, it reflects our personal tastes.

- The Quotations section of the Mneseek website offers several features:

- Keyword search

- Search by topic: following the major themes of the Mneseek website, along with several other broad topics, such as happiness, action, truth, silence, time, solitude, and proverbs (organized by origin).

- Browse by author: an alphabetical index of authors is available.

- 40 random quotations

- Browse by contributor

- Favorite quotations: specific to each user.

- Ranking by relevance: allows each quotation to be rated for relevance on a scale from 0 to 100. Users can create their own rankings. In addition, every section can be sorted by relevance. For example, users can view the quotations on the website relating to the topic of action, sorted by relevance.

- Report an error or inappropriate content in a quotation

- Attach one or more multimedia notes to quotations

- Ask ChatGPT to expand on a quotation

Finally, quotations can be “categorized,” that is, re-indexed, giving rise to statements. In this respect, they constitute one of the primary and fundamental building blocks of the Mneseek website.