Quotes about men

A collection of quotes on the topic of men.

„The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.“

— Friedrich Hayek Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate 1899 - 1992
Context: Whereas, in fact, specialised students, even after generations of effort, find it exceedingly difficult to explain such matters, and cannot agree on what are the causes or what will be the effects of particular events. The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. To the naive mind that can conceive of order only as the product of deliberate arrangement, it may seem absurd that in complex conditions order, and adaptation to the unknown, can be achieved more effectively by decentralizing decisions and that a division of authority will actually extend the possibility of overall order. Yet that decentralization actually leads to more information being taken into account. Ch. 5: The Fatal Conceit.

Imagination

„Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy.“

— Siegbert Tarrasch German chess player, chess writer, and chess theoretician 1862 - 1934
The Game of Chess (1931), Preface

Love, Music

„The Word of God can take care of itself, and will do so if we preach it, and cease defending it. See you that lion. They have caged him for his preservation; shut him up behind iron bars to secure him from his foes! See how a band of armed men have gathered together to protect the lion. What a clatter they make with their swords and spears! These mighty men are intent upon defending a lion. O fools, and slow of heart! Open that door! Let the lord of the forest come forth free. Who will dare to encounter him? What does he want with your guardian care? Let the pure gospel go forth in all its lion-like majesty, and it will soon clear its own way and ease itself of its adversaries.“

— Charles Spurgeon British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist 1834 - 1892
The Lover of God's Law Filled with Peace (January 1888) http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols34-36/chs2004.pdf

God, Fools, Way, Heart

„Imagine that. All the men of Germany marching in step with even their wotsits hanging the same way.“

— Carl Zuckmayer German writer and playwright 1896 - 1977
Wabschke, The Captain of Köpenick Tr. Ron Hutchinson (2013)

Way, Imagination

„Evil men may not always do these things, but they seek to destroy goodness, virtue, morality, decency, truth and honor“

— Fulton J. Sheen Catholic bishop and television presenter 1895 - 1979
Context: No one can understand Communism who does not believe in the devil. The Communists believe in the devil. The Communists organized a so-called "patriotic" church. A few brain washed were to be in charge of the churches because they were loyal to the anti-God regime. One of the first orders given by the Communists to them was that the prayer to Prayer to Saint Michael be no longer said because it invoked the protection of St. Michael against "the wickedness and snares of the devil." As one Communist judge said: "We are those devils." It is hard for many in the free world to believe that there are not only bad men, but evil men. Bad men steal, rape, ravage and plunder. Evil men may not always do these things, but they seek to destroy goodness, virtue, morality, decency, truth and honor. Bad men who steal admit honesty; evil men who do not steal, call dishonesty "honesty," totalitarianism "democracy," slavery "freedom." Evil men can be nice at table, polite with women, courteous in Washington, refined in London and calm in Geneva. But the principle which guides their every move is the maxim of Lenin: every lie, trickery, knavery and deceit must be used to. "Bishop Sheen Writes...Communism and Tragedy," The Toledo Blade, Sunday, July 26, 1959, sec. 2, p. 5. https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22communists%20believe%20in%20the%20devil%22%20site:news.google.com/newspapers&source=newspapers&gws_rd=ssl#hl=en&q=%22Bishop+Sheen+Writes...+Communism+And+Tragedy%22+

Truth, Evil

„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 classical Greek Athenian philosopher -469 - -399 BC
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."

Death, Wisdom, God, World

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

— Bram Stoker, Dracula

World

„I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love.“

— Frank O'Hara American poet, art critic and writer 1926 - 1966

Love

„Chorus: O suitably attired in leather boots
Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom
Whence by what way how purposed art thou come
To this well-nightingaled vicinity?
My object in inquiring is to know.
But if you happen to be deaf and dumb
And do not understand a word I say,
Nod with your hand to signify as much.
Alcmaeon: I journeyed hither a Boeotian road.
Chorus: Sailing on horseback or with feet for oars?
Alcmaeon: Plying by turns my partnership of legs.
Chorus: Beneath a shining or a rainy Zeus?
Alcmaeon: Mud's sister, not himself, adorns my shoes.
Chorus: To learn your name would not displease me much.
Alcmaeon: Not all that men desire do they attain.“

— A.E. Housman English classical scholar and poet 1859 - 1936
"Fragment of a Greek Tragedy". This parody was first written in 1883, but quoted here from a revised version of 1927.

Art, Shoe, Way, Travel

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

— Christine de Pizan Italian French late medieval author 1364 - 1430

Women, Understanding

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„I confess today in good faith that I am angry with myself for having formerly seen in a bad light, within the revolutionary government, Robespierre and Saint-Just. I believe that these two men were better on their own than all the revolutionaries together.“

— François-Noël Babeuf French political agitator and journalist of the French Revolutionary period 1760 - 1797

Faith, Light

„All ancient philosophers, poets, and moralists agree that love is a striving, an aspiration of the “lower” toward the “higher,” the “unformed” toward the “formed,” … “appearance” towards “essence,” “ignorance” towards “knowledge,” a “mean between fullness and privation,” as Plato says in the Symposium. … The universe is a great chain of dynamic spiritual entities, of forms of being ranging from the “prima materia” up to man—a chain in which the lower always strives for and is attracted by the higher, which never turns back but aspires upward in its turn. This process continues up to the deity, which itself does not love, but represents the eternally unmoving and unifying goal of all these aspirations of love. Too little attention has been given to the peculiar relation between this idea of love and the principle of the “agon,” the ambitious contest for the goal, which dominated Greek life in all its aspects—from the Gymnasium and the games to dialectics and the political life of the Greek city states. Even the objects try to surpass each other in a race for victory, in a cosmic “agon” for the deity. Here the prize that will crown the victor is extreme: it is a participation in the essence, knowledge, and abundance of “being.” Love is only the dynamic principle, immanent in the universe, which sets in motion this great “agon” of all things for the deity.
Let us compare this with the Christian conception. In that conception there takes place what might be called a reversal in the movement of love. The Christian view boldly denies the Greek axiom that love is an aspiration of the lower towards the higher. On the contrary, now the criterion of love is that the nobler stoops to the vulgar, the healthy to the sick, the rich to the poor, the handsome to the ugly, the good and saintly to the bad and common, the Messiah to the sinners and publicans. The Christian is not afraid, like the ancient, that he might lose something by doing so, that he might impair his own nobility. He acts in the peculiarly pious conviction that through this “condescension,” through this self-abasement and “self-renunciation” he gains the highest good and becomes equal to God. …
There is no longer any “highest good” independent of and beyond the act and movement of love! Love itself is the highest of all goods! The summum bonum is no longer the value of a thing, but of an act, the value of love itself as love—not for its results and achievements. …
Thus the picture has shifted immensely. This is no longer a band of men and things that surpass each other in striving up to the deity. It is a band in which every member looks back toward those who are further removed from God and comes to resemble the deity by helping and serving them.“

— Max Scheler German philosopher 1874 - 1928
L. Coser, trans. (1961), pp. 85-88

Love, Life, God, Game

„He that doth not as other men do, but endeavoureth that which ought to be done, shall thereby rather incur peril than preservation; for whoso laboureth to be sincerely perfect and good shall necessarily perish, living among men that are generally evil.“

— Walter Raleigh English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer 1554 - 1618
Chapter 25

Evil, Perfection, Sincerity

„I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven. It is a grievous task which God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with.“

— Solomon king of Israel and the son of David -1011 - -931 BC
Ecclesiastes, 1:13 http://bible.cc/ecclesiastes/1-13.htm, New American Standard Bible

Wisdom, God, Affliction

„I'm afraid that the following syllogism may be used by some in the future.

Turing believes machines think
Turing lies with men
Therefore machines do not think

Yours in distress,

Alan“

— Alan Turing British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist 1912 - 1954

Thinking, Future

„Treat bad men exactly as if they were insane.“

— Oliver Wendell Holmes Poet, essayist, physician 1809 - 1894
Context: I do not know in what shape the practical question may present itself to you; but I will tell you my rule in life, and I think you will find it a good one. Treat bad men exactly as if they were insane. They are in-sane, out of health, morally. Reason, which is food to sound minds, is not tolerated, still less assimilated, unless administered with the greatest caution; perhaps, not at all. Avoid collision with them, so far as you honorably can; keep your temper, if you can,—for one angry man is as good as another; restrain them from violence, promptly, completely, and with the least possible injury, just as in the case of maniacs,—and when you have got rid of them, or got them tied hand and foot so that they can do no mischief, sit down and contemplate them charitably...

„Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Etiam egestas wisi a erat. Morbi imperdiet, mauris ac auctor dictum.“

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