Aussie Quotations
Over the years Australians have gained a
reputation (particularly in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s courtesy of
Barry Humphries' character, Barry McKenzie) for their dry wit based on
unusual imagery. This was never quite the truth. Australians are not as
linguistically dexterous as their American or British counterparts.
Their forte is understatement and this is probably best summed up by
thebushranger Ned Kellyıs words immediately prior to be hanged at
Pentridge Gaol in Melbourne when he reputedly said 'Such is life'. It
is hard to imagine anything more spare.
Sir Joseph Banks
Sir Joseph Banks was the botanist who sailed up the
east coast of Australia with Captain Cook in 1770. In his journal on 25
April 1770, when he has passed the area south of modern day Wollongong,
he wrote:
'The countrey tho in general well enough clothd appeard
in some places bare; it resembled in my imagination the back of a lean
cow, covered in general with long hair, but nevertheless where her
scraggy hip bones have stuck out farther than they ought accidental
rubbs and knocks have intirely bard them of their share of covering.'
In 1799 he wrote to Governor Hunter
predicting Australia's future. 'Who knows but that England may revive
in New South Wales when it has sunk in Europe.'
C.E.W. Bean
C.E.W. Bean wrote The Official History of Australia in
the War of 1914-1918. He was astute observer of Australia and, for the
time, did much to define the nature of the Australian character -
particularly the myth of the ANZAC.
He described Australia around the turn of the century as:
The cities, the railways, the navy, the army, are not
made. The farms and homesteads are not settled. The whole calibre of
the people is still being altered by changes in their education.
Australia is a big blank map, and the whole people is constantly
sitting over it like a committee, trying to work out the best way to
fill it in.'
He wrote about the ANZACs at Gallipoli;
'Life was very dear, but life was not worth living
unless they could be true to their idea of Australian manhood. Standing
upon that alone, when help failed and hope faded, when the end loomed
clear in front of them, when the whole world seemed to crumble and the
heaven to fall in, they faced its ruin undismayed.'
Geoffrey Blainey
A well-known Australian historian who coined the
expression 'the tyranny of distance' to describe Australia's isolation
from the rest of the world. In his book A Land Half Won he summed up
the great Australian dilemma - that we are a predominantly European
people living in a very non-European environment.
He wrote: 'The continent had to be discovered
emotionally. It had to become a homeland and feel like a home. The
sense of overpowering space, the isolation, the warmth of summer, the
garish light, the shiny-leafed trees, the birds and insects, the smell
of air filled with dust, the strange silences, and the landscapes in
all their oddness had to become familiar.'
More to come - keep an eye on this spot.
