Quotes about men
page 20

Andrew Jackson photo

“Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out!”

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

Reputedly from the original minutes of the Philadelphia committee of citizens sent to meet with President Jackson (February 1834), according to Andrew Jackson and the Bank of the United States (1928) by Stan V. Henkels as published by his son Stan V. Henkels Jr. - online PDF http://kenhirsch.net/money/AndrewJacksonAndTheBankHenkels.pdf. John Carney at Business Insider https://www.businessinsider.com/sorry-andrew-jackson-probably-never-said-that-den-of-theives-quote-2010-1 has disputed its authenticity alleging Henkels made unreliable claims about historical documents.
A different version of this quote is provided by Henkels in a 1912 copy of Publisher's Weekly https://books.google.com/books?id=IyYzAQAAMAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (p. 2039).
Disputed

Voltaire photo

“Virtue supposes liberty, as the carrying of a burden supposes active force. Under coercion there is no virtue, and without virtue there is no religion. Make a slave of me, and I shall be no better for it. Even the sovereign has no right to use coercion to lead men to religion, which by its nature supposes choice and liberty. My thought is no more subject to authority than is sickness or health.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

"Canon Law: Ecclesiastical Ministry" (1771)
Questions sur l'Encyclopédie (1770–1774)
Original: (fr) La vertu suppose la liberté, comme le transport d’un fardeau suppose la force active. Dans la contrainte point de vertu, et sans vertu point de religion. Rends-moi esclave, je n’en serai pas meilleur. Le souverain même n’a aucun droit d’employer la contrainte pour amener les hommes à la religion, qui suppose essentiellement choix et liberté. Ma pensée n’est pas plus soumise à l’autorité que la maladie ou la santé.

Robert Browning photo
Albert Einstein photo
Joseph Goebbels photo
Henri de Saint-Simon photo

“We regard society as the ensemble and union of men engaged in useful work. We can conceive of no other kind of society.”

Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825) French early socialist theorist

"Declarations of Principles"

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry photo
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry photo
Edward Carson, Baron Carson photo
Dua Lipa photo

“The music industry as a whole just needs more women. There are a lot of men at the top of the ranks.”

Dua Lipa (1995) English singer and songwriter

Dua Lipa Believes the Future of Music Is Female, Glamour, 2017-07-17 https://www.glamour.com/story/dua-lipa-believes-the-future-of-music-is-female,

Socrates photo

“Be of good cheer; for if our guests are sensible men, they will bear with us; and if they are not, we need not care about them.”

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

Diogenes Laertius

Socrates photo

“O Euclid, you will acquire a power of managing sophists, but not of governing men.”

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

Diogenes Laertius

Socrates photo

“For actors on the stage, but not for men.”

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

Diogenes Laertius

Upton Sinclair photo

“Men of unlimited means live lives of unbridled lust, and then, in their old age, they are helpless victims of their own impulses.”

Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) American novelist, writer, journalist, political activist

https://books.google.com/books?id=CbfTjcDmA6gC&pg=RA1-PA26&lpg=RA1-PA26&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false The Book of Life (1921)

Plato photo

“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they would like to say something. As empty vessels make the loudest sounds, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”

Plato (-427–-347 BC) Classical Greek philosopher

Often attributed to Plato, it cannot be found in any of his writings ( see this http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=796). The quote is attributed to Plato in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern (page 560) by Tryon Edwards.
Misattributed

Karl Marx photo
Karl Marx photo
Karl Marx photo
Karl Marx photo

“The fact is, therefore, that definite individuals who are productively active in a definite way enter into these definite social and political relations. Empirical observation must in each separate instance bring out empirically, and without any mystification and speculation, the connection of the social and political structure with production. The social structure and the state are continually evolving out of the life-process of definite individuals, but of individuals, not as they appear in their own or other people's imagination, but as they really are; i.e. as they are effective, produce materially, and are active under definite material limits, presuppositions and conditions independent of their will.
The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behaviour. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of the politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics of a people. Men are the producers of their conception, ideas, etc.”

real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process. If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical life-process.
Source: The German Ideology (1845-1846)

Karl Marx photo
Tupac Shakur photo

“What I want you to take seriously, is what we have to do for the youth. Because we're coming up in a totally different world. This is not the same world that you had this is not 6th Street its not. You grew up, we grew up B. C. Before crack. That's just saying it all. You understand? We did not grow up without parents. You had parents that told you this and that and told you what went on back in the day. You have young kids, fourteen, coming home and their mama is smoking out, going to their best friend to get the product. You understand what I'm saying? So that means it's not just about you taking care of "your" child. It's about you taking care of "these children". It hurts that I got to, it bothers me, not hurts, that I have to sidestep my youth to stand up and do some shit that somebody else is suppose to be doing. You understand what I'm saying? There's too many men out here for me to be doing this, because it ain't my turn yet. I'm supposed to be following behind him getting the knowledge. I don't even got a chance to get the fucking knowledge. I can't go to college. There's too much problems out here. I don't got the money. Nobody does. You understand what I'm saying? So what I'm saying is, it's not as easy as we're mapping it out to be. We've got to stay real. Before we can be new African we've gotta be black first. You understand? We've gotta get our brothers from the streets like Harriett Tubman did. Why can't we look at that and see exactly what she was doing? Like Malcolm did, the real Malcolm, before the Nation of Islam. You've got to remember, this was a pimp. You know what I'm saying, we forgot about all that. In our strive to be enlightened we forgot about all our brothers in the street, about all our dope dealers, our pushers and our pimps, and that's who's teaching the new generation, because y'all not doing it. I'm sorry. But, it's the pimps and pushers who's teaching us. So, if you got a problem with how we were raised, its because they was the only ones who could do it. They the only ones who did it, because everybody else wanted to go to college, and you know, yeah everything's changed, they were the ones telling you 'the white man ain't shit, there you go, check this out young blood, you take this product, you switch it, you get money and that's how you beat the white man, you get money, you get the hell up out of here.'”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Nobody else did that. So I don't wanna hear shit about nobody telling me who I can't love and respect until you start doing what they did. To me, this is Mecca. This is the black family. You know what I'm saying? But, what makes it that much sadder, what makes me wanna cry, is that when I leave this place, so does Mecca. You understand what I'm saying? We're going back to the real deal. Right out there, you're going see the same sisters and Brenda, they're right out there, and y'all are going to get in your cars and drive the fuck home.
1990s, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Atlanta (1992)

Tupac Shakur photo

“Men see with arrogant eyes which organize everything seen with reference to themselves and their own interests.”

Source: The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1983), p. 67

Abraham Lincoln photo
Mikhail Bakunin photo
Mikhail Bakunin photo
William Shakespeare photo
Thomas Fuller photo
Oscar Wilde photo

“In the old days men had the rack. Now they have the Press. That is an Improvement certainly. but still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralising. Somebody - was it Burke?”

called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time, no doubt. But at the present moment it really is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, The Lords Spiritual have nothing to say and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by journalism.
The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Source: Wilde, Oscar, (1891 / 1912) The Soul of Man Under Socialism, London, Arthur L. Humphreys. Retrieved from University of California Libraries Archive.org https://archive.org 13 February 2018 https://archive.org/details/soulofmanunderso00wildiala

Thucydides photo
Napoleon I of France photo
Napoleon I of France photo

“There are only two forces that unite men — fear and interest. All great revolutions originate in fear, for the play of interests does not lead to accomplishment.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Napoleon I of France photo

“What I have done up to this is nothing. I am only at the beginning of the course I must run. Do you imagine that I triumph in Italy in order to aggrandise the pack of lawyers who form the Directory, and men like Carnot and Barras? What an idea!”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

As quoted in Memoirs of Count Miot de Melito (1788 - 1815) as translated by Frances Cashel Hoey and John Lillie (1881), Vol. II, p. 94

Napoleon I of France photo

“Commerce unites men and make them; therefore it is fatal to despotic power.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon's War Maxims: With His Social and Political Thoughts (1804-15), Gale & Polden, (1899) p. 150

Josephine Bakhita photo

“If I were to meet those men who abducted me, or even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands, for it that hadn’t happened, I would not be a Christian and a religious today.”

Josephine Bakhita (1868–1947) Italian saint and former slave

Quoted in "St. Josephine Bakhita, Virgin", Vatican News https://www.vaticannews.va/en/saints/02/08/st--josephine-bakhita--virgin.html.

Bertrand Russell photo
John Chrysostom photo

“Nothing is so apt to draw men under teaching, as to love, and be loved.”

John Chrysostom (349–407) important Early Church Father

Homily 6 on First Timothy https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/230606.htm

Anthony the Great photo

“A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying, 'You are mad, you are not like us.'”

Anthony the Great (251–357) Christian saint, monk, and hermit

Saying 25, Page 6
From Apophthegmata Patrum

Abraham Lincoln photo

“More rogues than honest men find shelter under habeas corpus”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1820s Gold treasure United States, 1860s

Abraham Lincoln photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Cyrus the Great photo

“Do what you want, but be prepared in that case to be ruled rather than to rule others... Soft countries breed soft men. For it is not possible for the same land to bear both wonderful fruits and men who are good at war.”

Cyrus the Great (-600–-530 BC) King and founder of the Achaemenid Empire

After being suggested by Artembares, grandfather of Artayctes, to abandon the rocky land of Persia Proper for a better region in the empire.
Source: As quoted by Herodotus, in the final section of The Histories; cited in https://books.google.com/books?id=2fZmqKcsf-wC&pg=PT362&lpg=PT362

Emmeline Pankhurst photo
Andrew Jackson photo
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien photo
Plato photo
Joseph De Maistre photo

“It is always necessary to call men back to history, which is the first master in politics, or more exactly the only master.”

Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821) Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat

"Of Monarchy," p. 120
Against Rousseau (1795)

Joseph De Maistre photo
Albert Camus photo

“...there are more things to admire in men than to despise.”

The Plague (1947)

Cleopatra VII photo

“O, wither’d is the garland of the war!
The soldier’s pole is fall'n; young boys and girls
Are level now with men; the odds is gone,
And there is nothing left remark
Beneath the visiting moon.”

Cleopatra VII (-69–-30 BC) last active pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt

As quoted, Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare, Act III, (1623)

Karl Marx photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“[T]he vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Voting Rights Act signing speech (1965)
Context: If you do this, then you will find, as others have found before you, that the vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.

Candace Bushnell photo
Zadie Smith photo

“Angry men with pointy things sent to secure a foreign city are pretty much alike anywhere. That's what I've heard. So far nothing's convinced me different.”

Sherwood Smith (1951) American fantasy and science fiction writer

Source: King's Shield (Inda #3, 2008)

Pat Conroy photo
James Madison photo

“To reconcile the gentleman with himself, it must be imagined that he determined the human character by the points of the compass. The truth was, that all men having power ought to be distrusted, to a certain degree.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Madison's notes (11 July 1787) http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_711.asp<!-- Reports of Debates in the Federal Convention (11 July 1787), in The Papers of James Madison (1842), Vol. II, p. 1073 -->
Variants:
1780s, The Debates in the Federal Convention (1787)
Context: Two objections had been raised against leaving the adjustment of the representation, from time to time, to the discretion of the Legislature. The first was, they would be unwilling to revise it at all. The second, that, by referring to wealth, they would be bound by a rule which, if willing, they would be unable to execute. The first objection distrusts their fidelity. But if their duty, their honor, and their oaths, will not bind them, let us not put into their hands our liberty, and all our other great interests; let us have no government at all. In the second place, if these ties will bind them we need not distrust the practicability of the rule. It was followed in part by the Committee in the apportionment of Representatives yesterday reported to the House. The best course that could be taken would be to leave the interests of the people to the representatives of the people.
Mr. Madison was not a little surprised to hear this implicit confidence urged by a member who, on all occasions, had inculcated so strongly the political depravity of men, and the necessity of checking one vice and interest by opposing to them another vice and interest. If the representatives of the people would be bound by the ties he had mentioned, what need was there of a Senate? What of a revisionary power? But his reasoning was not only inconsistent with his former reasoning, but with itself. At the same time that he recommended this implicit confidence to the Southern States in the Northern majority, he was still more zealous in exhorting all to a jealousy of a western majority. To reconcile the gentleman with himself, it must be imagined that he determined the human character by the points of the compass. The truth was, that all men having power ought to be distrusted, to a certain degree. The case of Pennsylvania had been mentioned, where it was admitted that those who were possessed of the power in the original settlement never admitted the new settlements to a due share of it. England was a still more striking example.

Jorge Luis Borges photo

“I reflected that everything happens to a man precisely, precisely now. Centuries of centuries and only in the present do things happen; countless men in the air, on the face of the earth and the sea, and all that really is happening is happening to me...”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

The Garden of Forking Paths (1942), The Garden of Forking Paths
Source: Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings

Robert Jordan photo
Marcus Tullius Cicero photo
Helen Fisher photo

“Men don't need linguistic talent; they just need courage and words.”

Helen Fisher (1947) Canadian anthropologist

Source: Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love

Will Durant photo

“History reports that the men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things, and the men who can manage money manage all.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

Source: The Lessons of History

Confucius photo

“Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
Philippa Gregory photo
Albert Einstein photo
Jane Austen photo
Albert Einstein photo

“Older men start wars, but younger men fight them.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Thomas Wolfe photo
Eric Jerome Dickey photo
Helder Camara photo
John Quincy Adams photo

“In charity to all mankind, bearing no malice or ill will to any human being, and even compassionating those who hold in bondage their fellow men, not knowing what they do.”

John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)

Letter to A. Bronson (30 July 1838); a similar idea was later more famously expressed by Abraham Lincoln, "With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right".

Camille Paglia photo
Laurell K. Hamilton photo
Margaret Atwood photo
Brandon Sanderson photo
Rebecca Solnit photo
George Bernard Shaw photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of our science.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Works and Days - generally misquoted as "Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science."
1870s, Society and Solitude (1870)

Marcus Aurelius photo
James Thurber photo

“All men kill the thing they hate, too, unless, of course, it kills them first.”

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

"The Crow and the Scarecrow", The New Yorker (date unknown); Further Fables for Our Time (1956). This is derived from Oscar Wilde's statement "All men kill the thing they love..."
From Fables for Our Time and Further Fables for Our Time

Ford Madox Ford photo
Alexander McCall Smith photo
Nelson DeMille photo
Ogden Nash photo