Famous quotes containing the words universal, common and/or ancestor:
“Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of some metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“It is surely a matter of common observation that a man who knows no one thing intimately has no views worth hearing on things in general. The farmer philosophizes in terms of crops, soils, markets, and implements, the mechanic generalizes his experiences of wood and iron, the seaman reaches similar conclusions by his own special road; and if the scholar keeps pace with these it must be by an equally virile productivity.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“I cannot yet begin to understand
Why we are proud that an ancestor knew
The crazy Poe, who was not of our kind
Bats in the belfry that round and round flew
In vapors not quite wholesome for the mind.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)