Paris Has Produced Camus, de Beauvoir, and Sartre. Their Quotes Are Now on Mugs Next to ‘Live Laugh Love’.
PARIS — Paris is the city where many of the world’s most cited philosophical statements were made, written, and subsequently removed from their context and placed on products whose relationship to the original thought is decorative rather than intellectual. Camus wrote about the absurdity of human existence in the face of mortality; his words now appear on notebook covers sold near the Sorbonne to people who want to feel philosophical while writing their grocery list. Sartre’s “Hell is other people,” extracted from a play whose context makes it mean something very different from its common usage, appears on t-shirts, mugs, and at least one office plant pot in the 11th arrondissement.
The Misattribution Industry
Paris also produces a significant volume of misattributed quotes: things said by someone else, or by no one, or constructed from a vague memory of something that sounded like what this person might have said, attributed to Victor Hugo, Voltaire, or Oscar Wilde (an Irishman who died in Paris and is therefore considered partially Parisian for attribution purposes). The Victor Hugo quote that appears on inspirational social media most frequently was not said by Victor Hugo. The Voltaire quote attributed on mugs was said by someone else in a different century. The tourism industry that sells these mugs is not primarily in the accuracy business. According to Quote Investigator, approximately 60% of quotes attributed to famous French thinkers on commercial products are misattributed or fabricated. The genuine quotes are available in the actual books, which are available in Shakespeare and Company. Both products exist. One of them is more durable.
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