| The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996. |
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| NUMBER: | 33307 |
| QUOTATION: | On a very rough-and-ready basis we might define an eccentric as a man who is a law unto himself, and a crank as one who, having determined what the law is, insists on laying it down to others. An eccentric puts ice cream on steak simply because he likes it; should a crank do so, he would endow the act with moral grandeur and straightaway denounce as sinners (or reactionaries) all who failed to follow suit.... Cranks, at their most familiar, are a sort of peevish prophets, and it’s not enough that they should be in the right; others must also be in the wrong. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Louis Kronenberger (1904–1980), U.S. critic, editor. “The One and the Many,” Company Manners, Bobbs-Merrill (1954). |
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| | | The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996 Columbia University Press. |
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