“He would listen, he said, to a great man talking, with one eye on the cat on the rug, thinking to himself how much more the cat knew than the man.”

—  John Buchan

Space (1912)
Context: Remember his mind and no other part of him lived in his new world. He said it gave him an odd sense of detachment to sit in a room among people, and to know that nothing there but himself had any relation at all to the infinite strange world of Space that flowed around them. He would listen, he said, to a great man talking, with one eye on the cat on the rug, thinking to himself how much more the cat knew than the man.

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 "He would listen, he said, to a great man talking, with one eye on the cat on the rug, thinking to himself how much more…" by John Buchan?
John Buchan photo
John Buchan 145
British politician 1875–1940

Related quotes

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“If you would know a man, observe how he treats a cat.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

Source: The Door Into Summer (1957), Chapter 1

Mark Twain photo

“Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave of the leash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Mark Twain photo

“If man could be crossed with a cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Notebook

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo

“No one would talk much in society, if he knew how often he misunderstands others.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe book Elective Affinities

Bk. II, Ch. 4
Elective Affinities (1809)

Joseph Joubert photo

“The talkative person is one who speaks more than he thinks. Someone who thinks a great deal and talks a great deal is never considered a talkative person. The talkative man speaks from his mouth, the eloquent man speaks from his heart.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist
Miguel de Unamuno photo

“Whenever a man talks he lies, and so far as he talks to himself — that is to say, so far as he thinks, knowing that he thinks — he lies to himself.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

Niebla [Mist] (1914)
Context: Whenever a man talks he lies, and so far as he talks to himself — that is to say, so far as he thinks, knowing that he thinks — he lies to himself. The only truth in human life is that which is physiological. Speech — this thing that they call a social product — was made for lying.

Scott Lynch photo

““I never even liked cats all that much.”
“Surely you realize,” said Patience, “that cats are no great respecters of human opinion.””

Scott Lynch book The Republic of Thieves

Source: The Republic of Thieves (2013), Chapter 3 “Blood and Breath and Water” section 1 (p. 146)

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“I woke up in bed with a man and a cat. The man was a stranger; the cat was not”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

Source: The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

Paul A. Samuelson photo

“I had a great admiration for Pigou. I thought that, in many ways, he was not only a faithful follower of Alfred Marshall, but he was also a more fertile developer of the Marshallian tradition than Marshall himself. … Whitehead said to me:“Don’t you think that Pigou was an overrated economist? Wasn’t Foxwell a better man?” Since I am an honest man, I said to Whitehead:“No, I think Pigou was a much more important economist than Foxwell.””

Paul A. Samuelson (1915–2009) American economist

Kotaro Suzumura, An interview with Paul Samuelson: welfare economics,“old” and “new”, and social choice theory (2005)
New millennium

Related topics