Harper Lee: Man

Harper Lee was American author. Explore interesting quotes on man.
Harper Lee: 284 quotes25 likes

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
- Atticus Finch”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 1, ch. 11
Atticus Finch
Variant: Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand. It's knowing you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.

“It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 1, ch. 11
Jean Louise (Scout) Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

“There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

“We're paying the highest tribute you can pay a man. We trust him to do right. It's that simple.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 2, ch. 23
Atticus Finch
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it — whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.

“Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 2, ch. 25
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: In the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.

“Every man’s island, Jean Louise, every man’s watchman, is his conscience. There is no such thing as a collective conscious.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“As sure as time, history is repeating itself, and as sure as man is man, history is the last place he’ll look for his lessons.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“A man can condemn his enemies, but it’s wiser to know them.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“I need a watchman to tell me this is what a man says but this is what he means, to draw a line down the middle and say here is this justice and there is that justice and make me understand the difference.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“But a man who has lived by truth—and you have believed in what he has lived—he does not leave you merely wary when he fails you, he leaves you with nothing. I think that is why I’m nearly out of my mind.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hands of another.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“A mob's always made up of people, no matter what. Mr. Cunningham was part of a mob last night, but he was still a man. Every mob in every little Southern town is always made up of people you know--doesn't say much for them, does it?”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal — there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest J. P. court in the land, or this honourable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levellers, and in our courts all men are created equal.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 2, ch. 20
Atticus Finch
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

“And it's certainly bad, but when a man spends his relief checks on green whiskey his children have a way of crying from hunger pains. I don't know of any landowner around here who begrudges those children any game their father can hit. Of course he shouldn't, but he'll never change his ways. Are you going to take out your disapproval on his children?”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 1, ch.3
Atticus Finch
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)