Quotes about men (10000 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Then, Evaristo felt in his hands the exercise of the power that Foucault spoke so much about, and he felt it like someone who discovers fear in his fellow men.”

José Baroja book No fue un catorce de febrero y otros cuentos

Fear , Exercises

“You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Lyrics, Imagine (1971 album)

Inspirational , Hope , Peaceful , World

“Why are women… so much more interesting to men than men are to women?”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

For women , Women

“When there's a person, there's a problem. When there's no person, there's no problem.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

It is mistakenly attributed to Stalin: there is no evidence that he ever said or wrote something like that.

This phrase from the novel "Children of the Arbat" (1987) by Анатолий Наумович Рыбаков (1911 — 1998). As Stalin said about the execution of military experts in Tsaritsyn in 1918: "Death solves all problems. No person and no problem. " Later, in his «Роман-воспоминание» (1997), Рыбаков wrote that the phrase Stalin "possibly from someone heard, perhaps, he came up with." This was Stalin's principle. I just, it briefly formulated."

Problem , Personality

“It all began with the three wise men, followed a star took them to Bethelehem, and made it heard throughout the land — born was the leader of man. All going down to see the Lord Jesus.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

"Jesus" on Queen (1973).

Star

“Money does not represent such a value as men have placed upon it. All my money has been invested into experiments with which I have made new discoveries enabling mankind to have a little easier life.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

As quoted in "A Visit to Nikola Tesla" by Dragislav L. Petković in Politika (April 1927); also in Tesla, Master of Lightning (1999) by Margaret Cheney, Robert Uth, and Jim Glenn, p. 82

Life , Money

“All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.”

Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty

人皆知我所以勝之形，而莫知吾所以制勝之形。
Source: The Art of War, Chapter VI · Weaknesses and Strengths

Victory

“Imperialism is a system of exploitation that occurs not only in the brutal form of those who come with guns to conquer territory. Imperialism often occurs in more subtle forms, a loan, food aid, blackmail. We are fighting this system that allows a handful of men on Earth to rule all of humanity.”

Thomas Sankara (1949–1987) President of Upper Volta

Food , Fight

“The real damage is done by those millions who want to "survive." The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don't want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes.”

Sophie Scholl (1921–1943) White Rose member

As quoted in O<sub>2</sub> : Breathing New Life Into Faith (2008) by Richard Dahlstrom, Ch. 4 : Artisans of Hope: Stepping into God's Kingdom Story, p. 63; this source is disputed as it does not cite an original document for the quote. It is also used in <i> The White Rose </i> (1991) by Lillian Garrett-Groag, a monologue during Sophie's interrogation.
Disputed
Context: The real damage is done by those millions who want to "survive." The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don't want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won't take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don't like to make waves — or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honor, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It's the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you'll keep it under control. If you don't make any noise, the bogeyman won't find you. But it's all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.

Peace

“The secret of getting successful work out of your trained men lies in one nutshell—in the clearness of the instructions they receive.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement

Training , Secret , Success

“I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Thinking

“Winning the men's confidence requires much of a commander. He must exercise care and caution, look after his men, live under the same hardships, and—above all— apply self discipline. But once he has their confidence, his men will follow him through hell and high water.”

Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) German field marshal of World War II

Source: Attacks

Exercises , Confidence , Hell , Water

“Men characterize pornography as something mental because their minds, their thoughts, their dreams, their fantasies, are more real to them than women's bodies or lives; in fact, men have used their social power to characterize a $10-billion-a-year trade in women as fantasy.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

Pornography, Men Possessing Women (1979)

Women , Dreams

“I am unwilling to accord to some small−minded and jealous individuals the satisfaction of having thwarted my efforts. These men are to me nothing more than microbes of a nasty disease. My project was retarded by laws of nature. The world was not prepared for it.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

About the role of J. Pierpont Morgan, and the failure of Tesla's "World System" project
My Inventions (1919)
Context: He had the highest regard for my attainments and gave me every evidence of his complete faith in my ability to ultimately achieve what I had set out to do. I am unwilling to accord to some small−minded and jealous individuals the satisfaction of having thwarted my efforts. These men are to me nothing more than microbes of a nasty disease. My project was retarded by laws of nature. The world was not prepared for it. It was too far ahead of time, but the same laws will prevail in the end and make it a triumphal success.

World , Disease , Law , Nature

“One wife is justified to the common men. But the higher you climb the ladder of power and success, the more women you'll meet along the way.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Success , Way , Women

“Men build too many walls and not enough bridges.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Les hommes construisent trop de murs et pas assez de ponts.
This became widely attributed to Isaac Newton after Dominique Pire ascribed it to "the words of Newton" in his Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1958. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1958/pire-lecture.html Pire refers not to Isaac, but to Joseph Fort Newton, who is widely reported to have said "People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges." This appears to be paraphrased from a longer passage found in his essays and addresses, The One Great Church: Adventures of Faith (1948), pp. 51–52: "Why are so many people shy, lonely, shut up within themselves, unequal to their tasks, unable to be happy? Because they are inhabited by fear, like the man in the Parable of the Talents, erecting walls around themselves instead of building bridges into the lives of others; shutting out life."
Misattributed

“In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings see oppression vividly when they're the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought.”

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–1991) Polish-born Jewish-American author

Behavior

“There are very few men-and they are the exceptions-who are able to think and feel beyond the present moment”

Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) German-Prussian soldier and military theorist

Feeling , Thinking

“Just as women's bodies are softer than men's, so their understanding is sharper.”

Christine de Pizan (1365–1430) Italian French late medieval author

Women , Understanding

“A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once. It seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.”

William Shakespeare Julius Caesar

Variant: Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
Source: Julius Caesar

Death , Fear , Time

“Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists principally of dealings with men.”

Joseph Conrad book Chance

Source: Chance (1913) part II, Ch. 5

For women

“Be an example to your men in your duty and in private life.”

Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) German field marshal of World War II

Address as Director of the Military School in Weiner Neustadt at the passing out parade of the 1938 class of cadets.
A note by General Bayerlein in the Rommel Papers (1953), edited by Basil Henry Liddell Hart. p. 241.[[War without Hate ]]
Context: Be an example to your men in your duty and in private life. Never spare yourself, and let the troops see that you don't, in your endurance of fatigue and privation. Always be tactful and well-mannered and teach your subordinates to be the same. Avoid excessive sharpness or harshness of voice, which usually indicates the man who has shortcomings of his own to hide.

Life

“Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Problem

“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love

Time Enough for Love (1973)

For women , Women , Dogs , Cats

“We sleep peaceably in our beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on our behalf.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

This has commonly been attributed to Orwell but has not been found in any of his writings. Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/11/07/rough-men/ found the earliest known appearance in a 1993 Washington Times essay by Richard Grenier: "As George Orwell pointed out, people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." The absence of quotation marks indicates Grenier was using his own words to convey Orwell's opinion; thus it may have originated as a paraphrase of his statement in "Notes on Nationalism" https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwelnat.htm (May 1945): "Those who "abjure" violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf." There are also similar sentiments expressed in an essay which Orwell wrote on Rudyard Kipling, quoting from one of Kipling's poems: "Yes, making mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep." In the same essay Orwell also wrote of Kipling: "He sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them."
Misattributed

Sleep , Night

“Boy Scout is not merely to give you fun and adventure but that, like the backwoodsmen, explorers, and frontiersmen whom you are following, you will be fitting yourself to help your country and to be of service to other people who may be in need of help. That is what the best men are out to do.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement

Source: Robert Baden-Powell: Scouting for Boys, The Original

People , Boy , Help , Country

“If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.”

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress

Anniversary

“Wise men speak when they have something to say, fools speak because they have to say something”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Fools

“As there are misanthropists, or haters of men, there are also misologists or haters of ideas, and both spring from the same cause, which is ignorance of the world. Misanthropy arises from too great confidence of inexperience; you trust a man and think him altogether true and good and faithful, and then in a little while he turns out to be false and knavish; and then another and another, and when this has happened several times to a man, especially within the circle of his most trusted friends, as he deems them, and he has often quarreled with them, he at last hates all men, and believes that no one has any good in him at all. …The reason is that a man, having to deal with other men, has no knowledge of them; for if he had knowledge he would have known the true state of the case, that few are the good and few the evil, and that the great majority are in the interval between them.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Hate , World , Faith , Confidence

“Hope is the only good that is common to all men; those who have nothing else possess hope still.”

Thales (-624–-547 BC) ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician

A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 234

Hope

“The farther men get from God, the farther they advance into the knowledge of religions.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

God , Religion , Knowledge

“It's simply our duty to save these people, and we still have time to remove them! But it's useless to sacrifice men in this senseless way. It's high time! We must evacuate those soldiers at once!”

Heinz Guderian (1888–1954) German general

Arguing with Adolf Hitler about the German army being cut off in the Courland Pocket; as quoted in Inside the Third Reich : Memoirs (1971) by Albert Speer, p. 534

People , Way , Time

“The people think of wealth and power as the greatest fate,
But in this world a spell of health is the best state.
What men call sovereignty is a worldly strife and constant war;
Worship of God is the highest throne, the happiest of all estates.”

Suleiman (1494–1566) Sultan of the Ottoman Empire

Mansel, Philip, Constantinople: city of the world's desire 1453-1924 (1995), p. 84
Poetry

God , Fate , War , People

“Being asked where in Greece he saw good men, he replied, "'Good men nowhere, but good boys at Sparta."”

Diogenes of Sinope (-404–-322 BC) ancient Greek philosopher, one of the founders of the Cynic philosophy

Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 27
Quoted by Diogenes Laërtius

Boy

“Do not allow your dreams of a beautiful world to lure you away from the claims of men who suffer here and now. Our fellow men have a claim to our help; no generation must be sacrificed for the sake of future generations, for the sake of an ideal of happiness that may never be realised.”

Karl Popper (1902–1994) Austrian-British philosopher of science

Utopia and Violence (1947)

World , Beauty , Dreams , Suffering

“Just as the various trades are most highly developed in large cities, in the same way food at the palace is prepared in a far superior manner. In small towns the same man makes couches, doors, plows and tables, and often he even builds houses, and still he is thankful if only he can find enough work to support himself. And it is impossible for a man of many trades to do all of them well. In large cities, however, because many make demands on each trade, one alone is enough to support a man, and often less than one: for instance one man makes shoes for men, another for women, there are places even where one man earns a living just by mending shoes, another by cutting them out, another just by sewing the uppers together, while there is another who performs none of these operations but assembles the parts, Of necessity, he who pursues a very specialised task will do it best.”

Xenophon book Cyropaedia

Cyropaedia, 4th Century BC

Women , Food , Shoe , Way

“Treat your men as you would your own beloved sons. And they will follow you into the deepest valley.”

Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty

Source: The Art of War, Chapter X · Terrain

“If help and salvation are to come they can only come from the children, for the children are the makers of men.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Part I : The Child's Part in World Reconstruction, p. 4.
The Absorbent Mind (1949)
Context: If help and salvation are to come they can only come from the children, for the children are the makers of men.
The child is endowed with unknown powers, which can guide us to a radiant future. If what we really want is a new world, then education must take as its aim the development of these hidden possibilities.

Children , Help

“Humankind is made up of two sexes, women and men. Is it possible for humankind to grow by the improvement of only one part while the other part is ignored?”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first President of Turkey

As quoted in "Atatürk" in Images of a Divided World (29 October 2006) http://jmilton6000.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/ataturk/
Variant translation: Humankind consists of two sexes, woman and man. Is it possible that a mass is improved by the improvement of only one part and the other ignored? Is it possible that if half of a mass is tied to earth with chains and the other half can soar into skies?
Context: Humankind is made up of two sexes, women and men. Is it possible for humankind to grow by the improvement of only one part while the other part is ignored? Is it possible that if half of a mass is tied to earth with chains that the other half can soar into skies?

Women , Sex , Parting

“Never dream of forcing men into the ways of God. Think yourself, and let think.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Sermon 37 "The Nature of Enthusiasm"
Sermons on Several Occasions (1771)
Context: Beware you are not a fiery, persecuting enthusiast. Do not imagine that God has called you (just contrary to the spirit of Him you style your Master) to destroy men’s lives, and not to save them. Never dream of forcing men into the ways of God. Think yourself, and let think. Use no constraint in matters of religion. Even those who are farthest out of the way never compel to come in by any other means than reason, truth, and love.

God , Dreams , Way , Thinking

“The appropriate age for marriage is around eighteen for girls and thirty-seven for men.”

Aristotle book Politics

Book VII, 1335a.27
Politics

Marriage , Age , Girl

“You have to be very fond of men. Very, very fond. You have to be very fond of them to love them. Otherwise they're simply unbearable.”

Marguerite Duras (1914–1996) French writer and film director

Love

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Death , Fear

“The woman who thinks she is intelligent demands equal rights with men. A woman who is intelligent does not.”

Colette (1873–1954) 1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi

Intelligence , Thinking

“There are lots of women who are attracted to tyrannical men. Like moths to a flame. And there are some women who do not need a hero or even a stormy lover but a friend. Just remember that when you grow up. Steer clear of the tryant lovers, and try to locate the ones who are looking for a man as a friend, not because they are feeling empty themselves but because they enjoy making you full too. And remember that friendship between a woman and a man is something much more precious and rare than love: love is actually something quite gross and even clumsy compared to friendship. Friendship includes a measure of sensitivity, attentiveness, generosity, and a finely tuned sense of moderation.”

Amos Oz book A Tale of Love and Darkness

Source: A Tale of Love and Darkness

Love , Women , Friendship , Feeling

“Forgive me, Majesty. I am a vulgar man! But I assure you, my music is not.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

Source: movie Amadeus (1984)

Forgiveness , Music

“Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this. Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Thom Merrilin
(15 October 1991)

For women , Women , Fools , Forgiveness

“All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

"The Shore and the Sea", Further Fables for Our Time (first publication, 1956)
From Fables for Our Time and Further Fables for Our Time

Learning

“Not all men (and especially the wisest) share the opinion that it is bad for women to be educated. But it is very true that many foolish men have claimed this because it displeased them that women knew more than they did.”

Christine de Pizan book The Book of the City of Ladies

Source: The Book of the City of Ladies

Women , Education

“All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be.”

Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie

Amanda, Scene Six
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)

Girl

“Educate the children and it won't be necessary to punish the men.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

As quoted in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists‎ (2007) by James Geary

Children , Education

“How good and thoughtful he is; the world seems full of good men--even if there are monsters in it.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

Variant: The world seems full of good men, even if there are monsters in it.
Source: Dracula

World

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Children , Freedom

“Europe today is a powder keg and the leaders are like men smoking in an arsenal … A single spark will set off an explosion that will consume us all … I cannot tell you when that explosion will occur, but I can tell you where … Some damned foolish thing in the Balkans will set it off.”

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany

No record of this quotation appears to exist in German.
In The World Crisis, Vol I: 1911-1914 https://books.google.com/books?id=6l6Fgnz8fXIC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA96#v=onepage&q&f=false (originally published in 1923), Winston Churchill asserted that during the July Crisis, German shipping magnate and diplomat Albert Ballin told him that Bismarck had said to him, "that one day the great European War would come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans" a year before his death.
The full quote above appears in "European Diary" by Andrei Navrozov, in Chronicles Vol. 32 (2008) as a comment during the Congress of Berlin in 1878. "European Diary" is a series of excerpts from Navrozov's unpublished (as of 2017) novel in English, Earthly Love: A Day in the Life of a Hypocrite.
Disputed

“As to what happened next, it is possible to maintain that the hand of heaven was involved, and also possible to say that when men are desperate no one can stand up to them.”

Xenophon (-430–-354 BC) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Hellenica Bk. 7, as translated by Rex Warner in A History of My Times (1979) p. 398.

“If, I say now, when, as I conceive and imagine, God orders me to fulfill the philosopher's mission of searching into myself and other men, I were to desert my post through fear of death, or any other fear; that would indeed be strange, and I might justly be arraigned in court for denying the existence of the gods… then I would be fancying that I was wise when I was not wise. For this fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of knowing the unknown; since no one knows whether death, which they in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. …this is the point in which, as I think, I am superior to men in general, and in which I might perhaps fancy myself wiser than other men — that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know: but I do know that injustice and disobedience to a better, whether God or man, is evil and dishonorable, and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

29a–b
Alternate translation: "To fear death, is nothing else but to believe ourselves to be wise, when we are not; and to fancy that we know what we do not know. In effect, no body knows death; no body can tell, but it may be the greatest benefit of mankind; and yet men are afraid of it, as if they knew certainly that it were the greatest of evils."
Plato, Apology

Death , Wisdom , God , World

“For showing loyalty in the midst of prosperity calls for no particular admiration, but always, if men show themselves steadfast when friends have fallen upon misfortunes, this is remembered for all times.”

Xenophon (-430–-354 BC) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Hellenica Bk. 4, as translated by Carleton L. Brownson (1918)

Time , Loyalty

“I only like two kinds of men, domestic and imported.”

Mae West (1893–1980) American actress and sex symbol

I'm No Angel (1933)

“The company, then, were feasting in silence, as though some one in authority had commanded them to do so, when Philip the buffoon knocked at the door and told the porter to announce who he was and that he desired to be admitted; he added that with regard to food he had come all prepared, in all varieties—to dine on some other person's,—and that his servant was in great distress with the load he carried of—nothing, and with having an empty stomach. Hearing this, Callias said, “Well, gentlemen, we cannot decently begrudge him at the least the shelter of our roof; so let him come in.” With the words he cast a glance at Autolycus, obviously trying to make out what he had thought of the pleasantry. But Philip, standing at the threshold of the men's hall where the banquet was served, announced: “You all know that I am a jester; and so I have come here with a will, thinking it more of a joke to come to your dinner uninvited than to come by invitation.””

Xenophon Symposium

“Well, then,” said Callias, “take a place; for the guests, though well fed, as you observe, on seriousness, are perhaps rather ill supplied with laughter.”
Symposium, 1.11-13

Food , Thinking , Laughter , Silence

“Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plutarch Moralia, How the Young Man Should Study Poetry

Variant translation: Base men live to eat and drink, and good men eat and drink to live.
Plutarch

Drink

“I cannot think we are useless or Usen would not have created us. He created all tribes of men and certainly had a righteous purpose in creating each.”

Geronimo (1829–1909) leader of the Bedonkohe Apache

Geronimo's Story of His Life (1907)

Thinking

“Wise men don't need to prove their point;
men who need to prove their point aren't wise.
The Master has no possessions.
The more he does for others, the happier he is.
The more he gives to others, the wealthier he is.
The Tao nourishes by not forcing.
By not dominating, the Master leads.”

Laozi book Tao Te Ching

Source: Tao Te Ching, Ch. 81 as interpreted by Stephen Mitchell (1992)

“Nine, nine… There have been nine men there for a long, long time, right? So why not nine women?”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

In response to the question “How many women would be enough” [on the Supreme Court] during interview https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/chat-women-supreme-court-11976773 with Diane Sawyer at The Women’s Conference (Long Beach, California, October 26, 2010)

Women , Time

“Feathers shall raise men towards the heaven even as they do the birds. That is by the letters written by their quills.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XLV Prophecies

Bird

“O Woman, you are not merely the handiwork of God, but also of men; these are ever endowing you with beauty from their own hearts … You are one-half woman and one-half dream.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

59
The Gardener http://www.spiritualbee.com/love-poems-by-tagore/ (1915)

God , Beauty , Dreams , Heart

“You say that workin is what a man's supposed to do.
But I say you ain't right if I can't give sweet love to you.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Off the Wall (1979)

Love

“Nazism says that women are absolutely equal to men. But they're different. And thank god for the difference.”

George Lincoln Rockwell (1918–1967) American politician, founder of the American Nazi Party

undated

Women , God

“With a bronze mirror, one can see whether he is properly attired; with history as a mirror, one can understand the rise and fall of a nation; with men as a mirror, one can see whether he is right or wrong. Now I've lost my faithful mirror by the death of Weizheng.”

Emperor Taizong of Tang (598–649) emperor of the Tang Dynasty

Quoted in: Yanqing Vanessa Ong et al. Memories unfolded: a guide to memories at Old Ford Factory, 2008, p. 50
Quoted regarding his advisor.Few men in history would be so frank and honest with their monarch and when Weizheng died, Taizong was overwhelmed with grief. The Emperor said to his ministers,

Death , Faith , History , Understanding

“Traditionally Marxism attracts the oppressed. This, however, is not the case in the Arab nation… The socialist programs in Arab history did not always come from the poor, but from men who had known no oppression and became the leaders of the poor. The Arab nation has never been as class-conscious as other nations.”

Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) Iraqi politician and President

n.d., quoted in Saddam Hussein: a political biography (2002) by Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi.

History

“Good sense travels on the well-worn paths; genius, never. And that is why the crowd, not altogether without reason, is so ready to treat great men as lunatics.”

Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909) Italian criminologist

Source: The Man of Genius (1891), p. x.

Travel , Sense

“Mathematics is the gate and key of the sciences. … Neglect of mathematics works injury to all knowledge, since he who is ignorant of it cannot know the other sciences or the things of this world. And what is worse, men who are thus Ignorant are unable to perceive their own ignorance and so do not seek a remedy.”

Roger Bacon book Opus Majus

cited in: Morris Kline (1969) Mathematics and the physical world. p. 1
Opus Majus, c. 1267

World , Mathematics , Knowledge , Science

“The desert knows me well, the night, the mounted men
The battle and the sword, the paper and the pen”

Al-Mutanabbi (915–965) Arabic poet from the Abbasid era

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O04oUcNXmdI
Context: When the lion bares his teeth, do not
fancy that the lion shows to you a smile.
I have slain the man that sought my heart's blood many a time,
Riding a noble mare whose back none else may climb,
Whose hind and fore-legs seem in galloping as one,
Nor hand nor foot requireth she to urge her on.
And O the days when I have swung my fine-edged glaive
Amidst a sea of death where wave was dashed on wave!
The desert knows me well, the night, the mounted men
The battle and the sword, the paper and the pen

Night

“Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic! If static our hopes are in vain; if kinetic — and this we know it is, for certain — then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

"Experiments With Alternate Currents Of High Potential And High Frequency" (February 1892)
Context: Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. This idea is not novel. Men have been led to it long ago by instinct or reason; it has been expressed in many ways, and in many places, in the history of old and new. We find it in the delightful myth of Antaeus, who derives power from the earth; we find it among the subtle speculations of one of your splendid mathematicians and in many hints and statements of thinkers of the present time. Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic! If static our hopes are in vain; if kinetic — and this we know it is, for certain — then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.

Hope , Question , Nature , Time

“There are three lessons I would write, —
Three words — as with a burning pen,
In tracings of eternal light
Upon the hearts of men.”

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright

Hope, Faith, and Love (c. 1786); also known as "The Words of Strength", as translated in The Common School Journal Vol. IX (1847) edited by Horace Mann, p. 386
Context: There are three lessons I would write, —
Three words — as with a burning pen,
In tracings of eternal light
Upon the hearts of men. Have Hope. Though clouds environ now,
And gladness hides her face in scorn,
Put thou the shadow from thy brow, —
No night but hath its morn. Have Faith. Where'er thy bark is driven, —
The calm's disport, the tempest's mirth, —
Know this: God rules the hosts of heaven,
The habitants of earth. Have Love. Not love alone for one,
But men, as man, thy brothers call;
And scatter, like the circling sun,
Thy charities on all. Thus grave these lessons on thy soul, —
Hope, Faith, and Love, — and thou shalt find
Strength when life's surges rudest roll,
Light when thou else wert blind.

Light , Heart

“It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.”

Julius Caesar (-100–-44 BC) Roman politician and general

Disputed
Original: (la) Qui se ultro morti offerant facilius reperiuntur quam qui dolorem patienter ferant.

Quoted in many works without citation

Pain , Patience

“Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit? Where there are medicines of sterility? Where there is murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain a harlot, but you make her a murderess as well. Do you see that from drunkenness comes fornication, from fornication adultery, from adultery murder? Indeed, it is something worse than murder and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you contemn the gift of God, and fight with His laws? What is a curse, do you seek as though it were a blessing? Do you make the anteroom of birth the anteroom of slaughter? Do you teach the woman who is given to you for the procreation of offspring to perpetrate killing? That she may always be beautiful and lovable to her lovers, and that she may rake in more money, she does not refuse to do this, heaping fire on your head; and even if the crime is hers, you are the cause. Hence also arise idolatries. To look pretty many of these women use incantations, libations, philtres, potions, and innumerable other things. Yet after such turpitude, after murder, after idolatry, the matter still seems indifferent to many men–even to many men having wives. In this indifference of the married men there is greater evil filth; for then poisons are prepared, not against the womb of a prostitute, but against your injured wife. Against her are these innumerable tricks, invocations of demons, incantations of the dead, daily wars, ceaseless battles, and unremitting contentions.”

John Chrysostom (349–407) important Early Church Father

St. John Chrysostom, Homily 24 on the Epistle to the Romans [PG 60:626-27] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2017/10/contraception-early-church-teaching-william-klimon.html

Money , God , Law , Dead

“I truly love our Code of Chivalry. We are taught that noblemen must take everything and say nothing. Noblemen must stand alone. Well, we're men, and men aren't born to stand alone.
-Myles of Olau”

Tamora Pierce book Alanna: The First Adventure

Source: Alanna: The First Adventure

Love

“As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.”

Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) American businessman and philanthropist

“Men always want to be a woman’s first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about these things. What (women) like is to be a man’s last romance.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Love , Women

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

This is probably the most quoted statement attributed to Burke, and an extraordinary number of variants of it exist, but all without any definite original source. They closely resemble remarks known to have been made by the Utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill, in an address at the University of St. Andrew (1 February 1867) http://books.google.com/books?id=DFNAAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA36&dq=%22Bad+men+need+nothing+more+to+compass+their+ends,+than+that+good+men+should+look+on+and+do+nothing%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RUh5U6qWBLSysQT0vYGAAw&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22Bad%20men%20need%20nothing%20more%20to%20compass%20their%20ends%2C%20than%20that%20good%20men%20should%20look%20on%20and%20do%20nothing%22&f=false : Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. The very extensively used remarks attributed to Burke might be based on a paraphrase of some of his ideas, but he is not known to have ever declared them in so succinct a manner in any of his writings. It has been suggested that they may have been adapted from these lines of Burke's in his Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/HTMLs/0005-01_Pt02_Thoughts.html (1770): "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." (see above)
:This purported quote bears a resemblance to the narrated theme of Sergei Bondarchuk's Soviet film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, produced in 1966. In it the narrator declares "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing", although since the original is in Russian various translations to English are possible. This purported quote also bears resemblance to a quote widely attributed to Plato, that said "The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." It also bears resemblance to what Albert Einstein wrote as part of his tribute to Pablo Casals: "The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it."
: More research done on this matter is available at these two links: Burkequote http://www.tartarus.org/~martin/essays/burkequote.html & Burkequote2 http://www.tartarus.org/~martin/essays/burkequote2.html — as the information at these links indicate, there are many variants of this statement, probably because there is no known original by Burke. In addition, an exhaustive examination of this quote has been done at the following link: QuoteInvestigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/12/04/good-men-do/.
Disputed
Variant: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing

For Men , Evil

“Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.”

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress

Relationship , Wedding , Women

“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

For Team , Leadership , Sense

“There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.”

William Shakespeare Julius Caesar

Brutus, Act IV, scene iii.
Source: Julius Caesar (1599)

Life

“Stand true to your calling to be a man. Real women will always be relieved and grateful when men are willing to be men”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Source: The Mark of a Man

For Men , Women

“We all are men, in our own natures frail, and capable of our flesh; few are angels.”

William Shakespeare Henry VIII

Source: Henry VIII

Angels , Nature

“What would men be without women? Scarce, sir… mighty scarce.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

For women , Women , Funny

“It is not great men who change the world, but weak men in the hands of a great God.”

Brother Yun (1958) Chinese christian house church leader

Source: The Heavenly Man: The Remarkable True Story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun

God , World , Change

“The Christian, however, must bear the burden of a brother. He must suffer and endure the brother. It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated. The burden of men was so heavy for God Himself that He had to endure the Cross. God verily bore the burden of men in the body of Jesus Christ. But He bore them as a mother carries her child, as a shepherd enfolds the lost lamb that has been found. God took men upon Himself and they weighted Him to the ground, but God remained with them and they with God. In bearing with men God maintained fellowship with them. It was the law of Christ that was fulfilled in the Cross. And Christians must share in this law.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

God , Law , Suffering , Christ

“Of course I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1977) Nigerian writer

Source: https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/15-quotes-from-chimamanda-adichie-that-have-change/

For women

“Men cannot improve a society by setting fire to it: they must seek out its old virtues, and bring them back into the light.”

Russell Kirk (1918–1994) American political theorist and writer

Light

“As far as men go, it is not what they are that interests me, but what they can become.”

Jean Paul Sartre Dirty Hands

Act 5, sc. 3
Dirty Hands (1948)

“We are becoming the men we wanted to marry”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

For women

“It is no less ancient than a pestilent error wherewith many men (but they chiefly who abound in power and riches) persuade themselves, or (as I think more truly) go about to persuade, that right and wrong are distinguished not according to their own nature but by a certain vain opinion and custom of men.”

Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) philosopher

Source: The Free Sea

Error , Nature , Thinking

“There is not one little blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make men rejoice.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Sermon Number 10 on I Corinthians, 698. As quoted in John Calvin: A Sixteenth-Century Portrait (1989) by William J. Bouwsma, pp. 134–135.
Epistles to the Corinthians

World , Color , Grass