“I will tell you what man is. He is a freak, an ejected foetus robbed of his natural development, thrown out into the world with a naked covering of parchment, with too little room for his teeth and a soft bulging skull like a bubble. But nature stirs a pudding there…”

—  William Golding , book Pincher Martin

Source: Pincher Martin (1956), p. 190, as cited in [The World and the Book: A Study of Modern Fiction, Josipovici, Gabriel, w:Gabriel Josipovici, Stanford University Press, London, 0-8047-0797-9, 243, http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=LTSsAAAAIAAJ]

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Dec. 5, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I will tell you what man is. He is a freak, an ejected foetus robbed of his natural development, thrown out into the wo…" by William Golding?
William Golding photo
William Golding 79
British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Lite… 1911–1993

Related quotes

John Fante photo

“In a little while all resistance was gone, and I knocked on Hellfrick's door. His room was madness, pulp western magazines over the floor, a bed with sheets blackened, clothes strewn everywhere, and clothes-hooks on the wall conspicuously naked, like broken teeth in a skull. There were dishes on the chairs, cigaret butts pressed out on the window sills…He was always drinking, day and night, but he never got drunk.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

“That's a 7.76mm round, you idiots, if you fire it into the air it comes to earth you know not where, like on some little kid's soft-skulled head, and that's the end of the kid. They're too stupid to even figure that much out.”

John Dolan (1955) American journalist

Gary Brecher at exile.ru/authors, 2002

Pliny the Elder photo

“Man alone at the very moment of his birth, cast naked upon the naked earth, does she [Nature] abandon to cries and lamentations.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book VII, sec. 2.
Naturalis Historia

Jozef Israëls photo

“But I have to tell you what I saw... I had entered a dark room [in the city Tunis], lit by a small, elongated horizontal window,.. The light cut sharply.... and drew itself on the stone floor... There behind the table was sitting the Jewish scribe with his arms forward, leaning on the parchment. He turned his lordly head in my direction... It was a beautiful head, delicate and translucent pale as alabaster, large and small wrinkles were lining along the small eyes and around the big curved hawk nose. A black cap covered the white skull and a low white-yellow beard lay in large tufts over the written parchment... two crutches lay slantingly on the floor beside him. How much I desired to get my sketchbook out.... but in front of the staring gaze of the scribe, I didn't find the courage to carry out my intention.”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat van de tekst van Jozef Israëls, in het Nederlands): Maar ik moet u vertellen wat ik zag.. Ik was een donkere ruimte binnengetreden, verlicht door een klein langwerpig horizontaal liggend raampje,.. .Scherp sneed het licht.. ..en tekende zich af op de stenen vloer.. .Daar zat achter de tafel de joodse wetschrijver met zijn armen voorover op het perkament geleund en draaide zijn vorstelijk hoofd naar mij toe;. ..Het was een prachtig hoofd, fijn en doorschijnend bleek als albast, rimpels, grote en kleine, liepen langs de kleine ogen en om de grote gekromde haviksneus. Een zwart kapje bedekte de witte schedel en een lage witgele baard lag in grote vlokken over het beschreven perkament.. ..twee krukken lagen naast hem schuin op de grond. Hoe gaarne had ik mijn schetsboek voor de dag gehaald,. ..maar voor de starende blik van de wetschrijver durfde ik mijn voornemen niet ten uitvoer te brengen.
Quote of Israëls from his text Spanje, een reisverhaal, publisher, Martinus Nijhoff, De Haag, 1899, p. unknown
Quotes of Jozef Israels, 1871 - 1900

“A man's ingress into the world is naked and bare,
His progress through the world is trouble and care;
And lastly, his egress out of the world, is nobody knows where.
If we do well here, we shall do well there:
I can tell you no more if I preach a whole year.”

John Edwin (1749–1790) English actor

The Eccentricities of John Edwin (second edition, 1791), vol. i. p. 74. These lines Edwin offers as heads of a "sermon". Longfellow places them in the mouth of "The Cobbler of Hagenau," as a "familiar tune". See "The Wayside Inn, part ii. The Student's Tale".

“Man came from the bowels of the earth, naked and primitive. So clever he thinks he has become. But I ask, if you put a naked savage in the same room with any lord of England in his finest silk breeches, what do you suppose is the difference?... Only the silk breeches.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: Ferret: The Reluctant King (2020), p. 216

Marcus Aurelius photo

“Nature has had regard in everything no less to the end than to the beginning and the continuance, just like a man who throws up a ball. What good is it then for the ball to be thrown up, or harm for it to come down… what good is it to the bubble while it holds together, or what harm when it is burst?”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VIII, 20
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VIII

Julian of Norwich photo

“God is Nature in His being: that is to say, that Goodness that is Nature, it is God. He is the ground, He is the substance, He is the same thing that is Nature-hood. And He is very Father and very Mother of Nature: and all natures that He hath made to flow out of Him to work His will shall be restored and brought again into Him by the salvation of man through the working of Grace.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 62

Confucius photo

“It is only he who is possessed of the most complete sincerity that can exist under heaven, who can give its full development to his nature. Able to give its full development to his own nature, he can do the same to the nature of other men.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

The Analects, The Doctrine of the Mean
Context: It is only he who is possessed of the most complete sincerity that can exist under heaven, who can give its full development to his nature. Able to give its full development to his own nature, he can do the same to the nature of other men. Able to give its full development to the nature of other men, he can give their full development to the natures of animals and things. Able to give their full development to the natures of creatures and things, he can assist the transforming and nourishing powers of Heaven and Earth. Able to assist the transforming and nourishing powers of Heaven and Earth, he may with Heaven and Earth form a ternion.

Related topics