“Either that boy is the sanest creature on Earth, he thought, or he is so disturbed that our tests cannot even begin to scratch the surface.”

—  Eoin Colfer

Source: The Last Guardian

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 that boy is the sanest creature on Earth, he thought, or he is so disturbed that our tests cannot even begin to …" by Eoin Colfer?
Eoin Colfer photo
Eoin Colfer 185
Irish author of children's books 1965

Related quotes

Karl Popper photo

“We are social creatures to the inmost centre of our being. The notion that one can begin anything at all from scratch, free from the past, or unindebted to others, could not conceivably be more wrong.”

Karl Popper (1902–1994) Austrian-British philosopher of science

As quoted in Popper (1973) by Bryan Magee
Context: Before we as individuals are even conscious of our existence we have been profoundly influenced for a considerable time (since before birth) by our relationship to other individuals who have complicated histories, and are members of a society which has an infinitely more complicated and longer history than they do (and are members of it at a particular time and place in that history); and by the time we are able to make conscious choices we are already making use of categories in a language which has reached a particular degree of development through the lives of countless generations of human beings before us.... We are social creatures to the inmost centre of our being. The notion that one can begin anything at all from scratch, free from the past, or unindebted to others, could not conceivably be more wrong.

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“The same qualities that make a decent boy make a decent man. They have different manifestations, but fundamentally they are the same. If a boy has not got pluck and honesty and common-sense he is a pretty poor creature; and he is a worse creature if he is a man and lacks any one of those three traits.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, Address at the Prize Day Exercises at Groton School (1904)
Context: I want to speak to you first of all as regards your duties as boys; and in the next place as regards your duties as men; and the two things hang together. The same qualities that make a decent boy make a decent man. They have different manifestations, but fundamentally they are the same. If a boy has not got pluck and honesty and common-sense he is a pretty poor creature; and he is a worse creature if he is a man and lacks any one of those three traits.

Robert M. Pirsig photo
Nicholas of Cusa photo
William Golding photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Robert Graves photo

“He roars in his anger, he scratches, he looks not up.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"Nebuchadnezzar's Fall"
Country Sentiment (1920)
Context: Down on his knees he sinks, the stiff-necked King,
Stoops and kneels and grovels, chin to the mud.
Out from his changed heart flutter on startled wing
The fancy birds of his Pride, Honour, Kinglihood.
He crawls, he grunts, he is beast-like, frogs and snails
His diet, and grass, and water with hand for cup.
He herds with brutes that have hooves and horns and tails,
He roars in his anger, he scratches, he looks not up.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau photo

“From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free.”

Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910–1997) French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and …

Time (28 March 1960)

Cressida Cowell photo
Anne Baxter photo

“Darryl Zanuck thought all women were either broads or librarians. He thought I was a librarian. He thought I was smart.”

Anne Baxter (1923–1985) American actress

"Anne Baxter Dies at 62, 8 Days After Her Stroke" (1985)

Related topics