“A paranoid man is a man who knows a little about what's going on.”
Quoted in Friend magazine (1970)
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William S. Burroughs 110
American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, a… 1914–1997Related quotes
“A fool boasts about what little he knows. A wise man keeps quiet about what he knows and is safe.”
Flowers of Wisdom
“A man who knows how little he knows is well, a man who knows how much he knows is sick.”
The Way of Life, According to Laotzu, 1944.
“The great man, then, knows when and in what he is a little man.”
Listen, Little Man! (1948)
Context: You are different from the really great man in only one thing: The great man, at one time, also was a very little man, but he developed one important ability: he learned to see where he was small in his thinking, and actions. Under the pressure of some task which was dear to him he learned better and better to sense the threat that comes from his smallness and pettiness. The great man, then, knows when and in what he is a little man.
“What does man actually know about himself?”
On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
Context: What does man actually know about himself? Is he, indeed, ever able to perceive himself completely, as if laid out in a lighted display case? Does nature not conceal most things from him — even concerning his own body — in order to confine and lock him within a proud, deceptive consciousness, aloof from the coils of the bowels, the rapid flow of the blood stream, and the intricate quivering of the fibers! She threw away the key.
“The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going”
“The world steps aside for the man who knows where he is going”
