Quote by Henry Miller

When you know what men are capable of you marvel neither at their sublimity nor their baseness. There are no limits in either direction apparently.


When you know what men are capable of you marvel neither at

Summary

This quote suggests that when we have an understanding of the potential for greatness and depravity that exists within humans, we no longer find it surprising when individuals exhibit either extraordinary achievements or despicable behavior. It implies that human beings possess an inherent duality, capable of remarkable and extraordinary feats as well as extreme acts of cruelty or immorality. Therefore, the quote reminds us not to be too amazed or shocked by the actions of individuals, as human capabilities have no apparent bounds in either direction.

By Henry Miller
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Random Quotations

People have often said to me, 'Surely when you are with the tramps they don't really accept you as one of themselves? Surely they notice that you are different--notice the difference of accent?' etc., etc. As a matter of fact, a fair proportion of tramps, well over a quarter I should say, notice nothing of the kind. To begin with, many people have no ear for accent and judge you entirely by your clothes. I was often struck by this fact when I was begging at back doors. Some people were obviously surprised by my 'educated' accent, others completely failed to notice it; I was dirty and ragged and that was all they saw. Again, tramps come from all parts of the British Isles and the variation in English accents is enormous. A tramp is used to hearing all kinds of accents among his mates, some of them so strange to him that he can hardly understand them, and a man from, say, Cardiff or Durham or Dublin does not necessarily know which of the south English accents is an 'educated' one. In any case men with 'educated' accents, though rare among tramps, are not unknown. But even when tramps are aware that you are of different origin from themselves, it does not necessarily alter their attitude. From their point of view all that matters is that you, like themselves, are 'on the bum'. And in that world it is not done to ask too many questions. You can tell people the history of your life if you choose, and most tramps do so on the smallest provocation, but you are under no compulsion to tell it and whatever story you tell will be accepted without question. Even a bishop could be at home among tramps if he wore the right clothes; and even if they knew he was a bishop it might not make any difference, provided that they also knew or believed that he was genuinely destitute. Once you are in that world and seemingly of it, it hardly matters what you have been in the past. It is a sort of world-within-a-world where everyone is equal, a small squalid democracy...

George Orwell, The Road to Wigan