“Either you are a man of unusual ability, Thorn, or a man with a rather inadequate grasp of human nature. I just hope it’s the former.”

—  Alastair Reynolds, book Redemption Ark

Source: Redemption Ark (2002), Chapter 27 (p. 495)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Either you are a man of unusual ability, Thorn, or a man with a rather inadequate grasp of human nature. I just hope it…" by Alastair Reynolds?
Alastair Reynolds photo
Alastair Reynolds198
British novelist and astronomer 1966

Related quotes

Joseph Addison photo

“To be perfectly just is an attribute in the divine nature; to be so to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 99.
The Guardian (1713)

“Second, we make no distinction between man and nature: the human essence of nature and the natural essence of man become one within nature in the form of production or industry, just as they do within the life of man as a species. Industry is then no longer considered from the extrinsic point of view of utility, but rather from the point of view of its fundamental identity with nature as production of man and by man.”

Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) French philosopher

The Desiring Machine
Anti-Oedipus Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1977)

Buckminster Fuller photo

“Nature never “fails.” Nature complies with its own laws. Nature is the law. When Man lacks understanding of Nature’s laws and a Man-contrived structure buckles unexpectedly, it does not fail. It only demonstrates that Man did not understand Nature’s laws and behaviors. Nothing failed. Man’s knowledge or estimating was inadequate.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

In "How Little I Know", in Saturday Review (12 Nov 1966), 152. Excerpted in Buckminster Fuller and Answar Dil, Humans in Universe (1983), 31.
"The Comprehensive Man", Ideas and Integrities: A Spontaneous Autobiographical Disclosure (1963), 75-76.
1960s

Immanuel Kant photo

“[T]he first characteristic of the human species is man's ability, as a rational being, to establish character for himself, as well as for the society into which nature has placed him. This ability, however, presupposes an already favorable natural predisposition and an inclination to the good in man, because the evil is really without character”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

since it is at odds with itself, and since it does not tolerate any lasting principle within itself

Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 246
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)

“Here it is, in quintessence: You are either a man with a gun, or you are mere human cattle for the slaughter. The choice is yours. I prefer to be armed and vigilant rather than being at the mercy of some would-be slave master. There is no notch in my ear.”

James Wesley Rawles (1960) Survivalist-fiction author and blogger

Source: Tools For Survival (2009), p. 150

Robert Herrick photo

“Before man's fall the rose was born,
St. Ambrose says, without the thorn;
But for man's fault then was the thorn
Without the fragrant rose-bud born; But ne'er the rose without the thorn.”

Robert Herrick book Hesperides

"The Rose" (published c. 1648). Compare: "Flower of all hue, and without thorn the rose", John Milton, Paradise Lost, book iv. line 256.; "Every rose has it's thorn", Poison, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn".
Hesperides (1648)

Marcus Tullius Cicero photo

“Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Wendell Berry photo

“A man with a machine and inadequate culture is a pestilence.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Anne Brontë photo

“But he, that dares not grasp the thorn
Should never crave the rose.”

Anne Brontë (1820–1849) British novelist and poet

The Narrow Way (1848)
Context: On all her breezes borne
Earth yields no scents like those;
But he, that dares not grasp the thorn
Should never crave the rose.

Abraham Lincoln photo

“I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Remarks at the Monogahela House (14 February 1861); as published in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953) by Roy P. Basler, vol. 4, p. 209
1860s

Related topics