"Put a feather with a fossil and a bit of coral and everyone will think it's a specimen. Put the same feather with a ribbon and an artificial flower and everyone will think it's for a lady's hat. Put the same feather with an ink-bottle, a book and a stack of writing-paper, and most men will swear they've seen a quill pen. So you saw that map among tropic birds and shells and thought it was a map of Pacific Islands. It was the map of this river."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Father Brown, The Perishing of the Pendragons
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Father_Brown
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Related Quotes
"“Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. That road goes dow…"
"“Have you ever noticed this—that people never answer what you say? They answer what you mean—or what they think you m…"
""Reverend sir," cried Angus, standing still, "are you raving mad, or am I?" "You are not mad," said Brown, "only a li…"
"Ten false philosophies will fit the universe; ten false theories will fit Glengyle Castle. But we want the real expla…"
"…Oh, let me be silly a little. You don't know how unhappy I have been. And now I know that there has been no deep sin…"
"You have to know something of the mind as well as the body," answered the priest; "we have to know something of the b…"
"The modern mind always mixes up two different ideas: mystery in the sense of what is marvellous, and mystery in the s…"
"I never said it was always wrong to enter fairyland. I only said it was always dangerous."
"…Never mind; one can sometimes do good by being the right person in the wrong place."
"“But every clever crime is founded ultimately on some one quite simple fact—some fact that is not itself mysterious. …"