“I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am.”
Source: All the Pretty Horses
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Cormac McCarthy 270
American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter 1933Related quotes
“I will not let the non-knitters of the world decide how normal I am.”
“How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?”
Source: Aspects of the Novel (1927), Chapter Five: The Plot
Source: The Magicians' Guild
The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), unplaced by chapter
Variant: It is odd how a man believes he can think better in a special place. I have such a place, have always had it, but I know it isn't thinking I do there, but feeling and experiencing and remembering. It's a safety place — everyone must have one, although I have never heard of a man tell of it.
“How small man is on this little atom where he dies! But how great his intelligence!”
Book XLII: Ch. 18: A summary of the changes which have occurred around the globe in my lifetime
Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848 – 1850)
Context: How small man is on this little atom where he dies! But how great his intelligence! He knows when the face of the stars must be masked in darkness, when the comets will return after thousands of years, he who lasts only an instant! A microscopic insect lost in a fold of the heavenly robe, the orbs cannot hide from him a single one of their movements in the depth of space. What destinies will those stars, new to us, light? Is their revelation bound up with some new phase of humanity? You will know, race to be born; I know not, and I am departing.