“It is more often from pride than from ignorance that we are so obstinately opposed to current opinions; we find the first places taken, and we do not want to be the last.”
- Francois De La Rochefoucauld, moralist (1613-1680)
This is the quotation from today’s A Word A Day from wordsmith.org.
What strikes me about it isn’t the truth of the quotation itself, which is clever, but the occupation of its source. Francois De La Rochefoucauld, born almost 400 years ago, seems to have made a living as a moralist. And he lived a long time at it (he was 67), by 17th century standards.
I think that’s so cool. He wasn’t a statesman or a writer, a philosopher or a farmer. He was a moralist. I wonder if he had sponsors, like composers did then. And what did he get paid?
How can I get a gig like that? I would be so damn good at it.
I’m sure I could get the job by slamming my head against a wall and applying to Fox News. I could babble about babies and the moral purity of heterosexual oil exploration to reduce our dependence on imported tomatoes, and Murdoch’s people would hand me a check.
Or I could sniff paint and run for public office, but that seems less like honest work.
You know, I think I’m beginning to get it. In France, in the century before the revolution, being a moralist must have been like being a blogger today.
Never mind, I’m doing that now. I like blogging. But thanks to the Internet, it doesn’t pay well anymore.
