“That man is … odd," I dared say to William.
"He is, or has been, in many ways a great man. But for this very reason he is odd. It is only petty men who seem normal.”

— Umberto Eco , book The Name of the Rose

The Name of the Rose (1980)

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 "That man is … odd," I dared say to William. "He is, or has been, in many ways a great man. But for this very reason he…" by Umberto Eco?

Umberto Eco 120

Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic… 1932–2016

Related quotes

“A man’s at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with.”

Cormac McCarthy (1933) American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter

Blood Meridian (1985)
Source: Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West

“he who voluntarily confronts tremendous odds must have very great internal resources to draw upon.”

Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War

Book II, 2.89-[6].
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book II

“it was odd, he thought, that a man could hate himself as though he were someone else.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

“What odds does it make to the man who lives within Nature's bounds, whether he ploughs a hundred acres or a thousand?”

Horace book Satires

Book I, satire i, line 48
Satires (c. 35 BC and 30 BC)

“There once was a man who said: "God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no one about in the Quad."”

Ronald Knox (1888–1957) English priest and theologian

Langford Reed, The Complete Limerick Book (1924)
The topic of this limerick and the following one is George Berkeley's philosophical principle, "To be is to be perceived".

“If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him … he will be surrounded by grandeur.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Letter to Harrison Blake (20 May 1860); published in Familiar Letters (1865)
Context: Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to make men of themselves. They learn to make houses; but they are not so well housed, they are not so contented in their houses, as the woodchucks in their holes. What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? — If you cannot tolerate the planet that it is on? Grade the ground first. If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him … he will be surrounded by grandeur. He is in the condition of a healthy and hungry man, who says to himself, — How sweet this crust is!

“A man must comport himself as a man. He must fight always preferably and soundly with the odds in his favor but on necessity against any sort of odds and with no thought of the outcome. He should follow his tribal laws and customs insofar as he can and accept the tribal discipline when he cannot. But it is never a reproach that he has kept a child's heart, a child's honesty and a child's freshness and nobility.”

Ernest Hemingway book True at First Light

Source: True at First Light (1999), Ch. 1

“The crowd is at silent odds with the prince. As is the way of a populace, the man of the future is the favourite.”
Tacitumque a principe vulgus<br/>dissidet, et, qui mos populis, venturus amatur.

Statius book Thebaid

Tacitumque a principe vulgus
dissidet, et, qui mos populis, venturus amatur.
Source: Thebaid, Book I, Line 169

“He's a curious man; a shrug of the shoulders and a wink and that's him. He's never thought it odd that his daughter cross-dresses for a living and sells second-hand purses on the side. But then, he's never thought it odd that his daughter was born with webbed feet.”

Jeanette Winterson book The Passion

Source: The Passion (1987), p.61

“He was so crafty and cunning in petty things, as the circumventing of any great man, the change of a Favourite, &c. insomuch as a very wise man was wont to say that he believed him the wisest fool in Christendom, meaning him wise in small things, but a fool in weighty affairs.”

James I of England (1566–1625) king during union of English and Scottish crowns

The Court and Character of King James I, commonly attributed to Anthony Weldon
About James

“That man is … odd," I dared say to William."He is, or has been, in many ways a great man. But for this very reason he is odd. It is only petty men who seem normal.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Umberto Eco 120

Related quotes

Related topics

“That man is … odd," I dared say to William.
"He is, or has been, in many ways a great man. But for this very reason he is odd. It is only petty men who seem normal.”