The Common School Journal, Vol. V, No. 18 (15 September 1843)
Book II, Chapter 1, "The Rival Conceptions of God"
Mere Christianity (1952)
Context: My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?
“The straight line belongs to Man. The curved line belongs to God.”
The real author seems to be Pierre Albert-Birot https://books.google.com/books?id=3Ul51CwjUOcC&pg=PA290&dq=%22the+curved+line+that+belongs+let%27s+say+to+God+and+the+straight+line+that+belongs+to+man%22&hl=de&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22the%20curved%20line%20that%20belongs%20let%27s%20say%20to%20God%20and%20the%20straight%20line%20that%20belongs%20to%20man%22&f=false.
Attributed
“Straight down the Crooked Lane,
And all round the Square.”
A Plain Direction http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15652/15652-h/15652-h.htm#poem_135, st. 1.
1820s
interview at John's studio, Billy Klüver, March 1963, as quoted in Jasper Johns, Writings, sketchbook Notes, Interviews, ed. Kirk Varnedoe, Moma New York, 1996, p. 85
1960s
“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”
Idea for a General History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784), Proposition 6.
Variant translations: Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be built.
From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.
Never a straight thing was made from the crooked timber of man.
Source: Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose
“Crooked cards and straight whiskey,
Slow horses and fast women.”
“For experience teacheth me that straight trees have crooked roots.”
P. 311 http://books.google.com/books?id=3xRbAAAAMAAJ&q="for+experience+teacheth+me+that+straight+trees+have+crooked+roots"&pg=PA311#v=onepage
Euphues and his England
Mould Manifesto against Rationalism in Architecture (1958)
