“If men do not keep on speaking terms with children, they cease to be men, and become merely machines for eating and for earning money.”

—  John Updike

“A Foreword for Younger Readers,” Assorted Prose (1965)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If men do not keep on speaking terms with children, they cease to be men, and become merely machines for eating and for…" by John Updike?
John Updike photo
John Updike 240
American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, an… 1932–2009

Related quotes

Warren Farrell photo
George Orwell photo

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not money, I am become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”

opening lines, I Corinthians xiii (adapted)
Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936)
Context: Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not money, I am become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not money, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not money, it profiteth me nothing. Money suffereth long, and is kind; money envieth not; money vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. … And now abideth faith, hope, money, these three; but the greatest of these is money.

Henry Miller photo
Warren Farrell photo
John Ruskin photo
Charles Kingsley photo

“For men must work, and women must weep,
And there's little to earn, and many to keep,
Though the harbor bar be moaning.”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

The Three Fishers http://www.bartleby.com/246/572.html (1851), st. 1.

Thomas Carlyle photo

“Men repent speaking ten times, for once that they repent keeping silence.”

James Burgh (1714–1775) British politician

The Dignity of Human Nature (1754)
Context: Men repent speaking ten times, for once that they repent keeping silence.
It is an advantage to have concealed one's opinion; for by that means you may change your judgment of things (which every wise man fmds reason to do) and not be accused of fickleness.

Henry Ford photo

“Money doesn't change men. It merely unmasks them. If a man is naturally selfish, or arrogant, or greedy, the money brings it out; that's all.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

Interview with Bruce Barton, "It Would Be Fun To Start Over Again," The American Magazine, April 1921

Warren Farrell photo

Related topics