
“The things a man sees when he ain't got a gun.--Watson the Caretaker”
Source: The Virginian
“The things a man sees when he ain't got a gun.--Watson the Caretaker”
323
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)
Source: Minority Report
“He got his mean streak from the gutter
Got his kindness from God”
"Blackpatch"
Lyrics
Sometimes attributed to Audubon in recent years, there are no occurrences of this statement that have been located prior to 1997, and it is probably derived from the remarks of Wendell Berry:
I am speaking of the life of a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children; who has undertaken to cherish it and do it no damage, not because he is duty-bound, but because he loves the world and loves his children; whose work serves the earth he lives on and from and with, and is therefore pleasurable and meaningful and unending; whose rewards are not deferred until "retirement," but arrive daily and seasonally out of the details of the life of their place; whose goal is the continuance of the life of the world, which for a while animates and contains them, and which they know they can never compass with their understanding or desire.
The Unforeseen Wilderness : An Essay on Kentucky's Red River Gorge (1971), p. 33
Misattributed
“It ain't only the colored folks has the blues; there's many a white man that's had 'em.”
Can't You Hear Me Calling: The Life of Bill Monroe, Father of Bluegrass (2009) by Richard Smith
“There ain't no man can avoid being born average. But there ain't no man got to be common.”
"Words of the Week" Jet (Sep 4, 1958)