“Reade was an emancipating writer because he seemed to speak as man to man to resolve history into an intelligible pattern in which there was no need for miracles. Even if he was wrong, he was grown-up.”

“Man does not speak because he thinks; he thinks because he speaks. Or rather, speaking is no different than thinking: to speak is to think.”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

“Because one does not want to be disturbed, to be made uncertain, he establishes a pattern of conduct, of thought, a pattern of relationship to man etc. Then he becomes a slave to the patter and takes the pattern to be the real thing.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

“Therefore the moral man, even when he is not doing anything, is serious; and, even when he does not speak, is truthful.”

Zisi (-481–-402 BC) Chinese philosopher

“Who was it who said that a wise man speaks when he has something to say, but a fool speaks because he must?”

Alastair Reynolds book Chasm City

“For the only way one can speak of nothing is to speak of it as though it were something, just as the only way one can speak of God is to speak of him as though he were a man, which to be sure he was, in a sense, for a time, and as the only way one can speak of man, even our anthropologists have realized that, is to speak of him as though he were a termite.”

Samuel Beckett book Watt

“The superior man, even when he is not moving, has a feeling of reverence, and while he speaks not, he has the feeling of truthfulness.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“The liberation of our continent means more than overcoming economic, social, and political dependence. It means, in a deeper sense, to see the becoming of mankind as a process of the emancipation of man in history. It is to see man in search of a qualitatively different society in which he will be free from all servitude, in which he will be the artisan of his own destiny.”

Gustavo Gutiérrez (1928) Peruvian theologian

“Man needs dignity even more than he needs bread.”

Brunello Cucinelli (1953) Italian entrepreneur and philanthropist

“You are a man now, and to be un hombre, a man must not only know right from wrong, he must also know who he is and who he isn’t. Because if a man doesn’t know who he is and who he isn’t, then no matter how much he knows about right and wrong, he will always be like a fish out of water.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer