‘God is on the side not of the heavy battalions, but of the best shots.’

—Voltaire

It may be pretty obvious to anyone reading my blog (or anyone who knows me well in person) that I thoroughly enjoy quotes or epigrams or short pithy sayings. They deliver an insight in a way that long paragraphs cannot. And because they do it so cleverly, I enjoy them quite a bit! I have had a hankering for them from childhood upwards. I used to note them down by hand on a sheet of paper whenever I came across one in a book I was reading or sections of newspapers devoted to literary matter. I had a file full of these papers (and still have them somewhere). Later of course, I started noting these in digital documents... now have a notepad on my phone for it ;)

A few days back, strangely and almost out of the blue, the quote by Voltaire I mentioned above popped into my head. It is one of the quotes I handwrote on paper way back then. I remember reading it several times over the years whenever I took out this file, which is why it's stuck in some corner of my brain. But I felt... I actually understood it only now! Now when I turned it in my head, its meaning flashed like a light (though arguably its meaning is open to many interpretations).

I am not at all sure as to what I made of the quote when I first came across it, why did I find it so intriguing even then, and why did I decide to jot it? Could it be that I did have the same insight into what it meant, however faintly, and with all these years having passed, I am seeing it again as something new? Could it be that my experiences in life are adding a new level of poignancy to the quote, more nuance if you will, which is why it feels like I am seeing it for the first time now, not that I did not have a vague sense of interpretation then? I certainly must have, or I wouldn’t have noted it because it wouldn’t have tickled me…