Quotes about men
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“I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Love

“All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

Source: Personal Success

Success, Women, People, Imagination

“To make a point of declaring friendship is to cheapen it. For men's emotions are very rarely put into words successfully.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Source: The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

Friendship

“Other men are strong like bricks - firm, unyielding, but if you pound on them long enough, they crack. You… you're strong like the wind. Always there, so willing to bend, but never apologetic for the times when you must be firm.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Well of Ascension

Strong, Time

“They were watching, out there past men's knowing, where stars are drowning and whales ferry their vast souls through the black and seamless sea.”

Cormac McCarthy (1933) American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter

Source: Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West

Soul, Star, Past, Sea

“love is what moves the world, I've always thought… it is the only thing which allows men and women to stand in a world where gravity always seems to want to pull them down… bring them low… and make them crawl…”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Love, Women, World

“When men talk about the agony of being men, they can never quite get away from the recurrent theme of self-pity. And when women talk about being women, they can never quite get away from the recurrent theme of blaming men.”

Pat Conroy book The Prince of Tides

Source: The Prince of Tides

Women

“No state, no government exists. What does in fact exist is a man, or a few men, in power over many men.”

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist

Give Me Liberty (1936)
Context: The picture of the economic revolution as the final step to freedom was false as soon as I asked myself that question. For, in actual fact, The State, The Government, cannot exist. They are abstract concepts, useful enough in their place, as the theory of minus numbers is useful in mathematics. In actual living experience, however, it is impossible to subtract anything from nothing; when a purse is empty, it is empty, it cannot contain a minus ten dollars. On this same plane of actuality, no State, no Government, exists. What does in fact exist is a man, or a few men, in power over many men.

“Women are fiercer by far than men.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Women

“The questioners had that beautiful detachment and devotion to stern justice of men dealing in death without being in any danger of it.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

Death, Justice, Beauty, Question

“When good people in any country cease their vigilance and struggle, then evil men prevail.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

People, Evil, Country

“Oh! how near are genius and madness! Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

Madness

“The world is changing, I said. It is no longer a world just for boys and men.”

Alice Walker book The Color Purple

The Color Purple (1982)

World, Boy, Change

“I don't trust society to protect us, I have no intention of placing my fate in the hands of men whose only qualification is that they managed to con a block of people to vote for them.”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Source: The Godfather

Fate, People

“Men get to be a mixture of the charming mannerisms of the women they have known.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

For Men, Women

“Men might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1850s, West India Emancipation (1857)
Context: Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. [... ] Men might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.

World

“Grief and disappointment are like hate: they make men ugly with self-pity and bitterness. And how selfish they make us too.”

Graham Greene (1904–1991) English writer, playwright and literary critic

Hate, Disappointment, Selfishness

“It was not well to drive men into final corners; at those moments they could all develop teeth and claws.”

Stephen Crane book The Red Badge of Courage

Source: The Red Badge of Courage

“It all comes down, as it must, to the desires of individual men. Oh, and women too of course, bless their empty little heads.”

Thomas Pynchon book Gravity's Rainbow

Source: Gravity's Rainbow

Women

“The Study of philosophy is not that we may know what men have thought, but what the truth of things is.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Truth, Study

“As soon as laws are necessary for men, they are no longer fit for freedom.”

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

As quoted in Short Sayings of Great Men: With Historical and Explanatory Notes‎ (1882) by Samuel Arthur Bent, p. 454

Powerful, Law, Freedom

“I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot. Men are not superior by reason of the accidents of race or color. They are superior who have the best heart — the best brain.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Liberty.
Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. IX

Color, Heart

“Today the devil as a wolf in supposedly a new suit of sheep’s clothing is enticing some men to parrot his line by advocating planned government guaranteed security at the expense of our liberties.”

Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Wolf, Clothes

“Hate is by far the greatest pleasure; men love in haste, but detest in leisure.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Love, Hate, Pleasure

“… sitting and waiting is one of the most miserable occupations known to man - not that it usually is known to men; women do it much more often.”

Diana Gabaldon book Dragonfly in Amber

Source: Dragonfly in Amber

Women, Waiting

“Civilized society is perpetually menaced with disintegration through this primary hostility of men towards one another.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

Hostility

“Never violate a woman, nor harm a child. Do not lie, cheat or steal. These things are for lesser men. Protect the weak against the evil strong. And never allow thoughts of gain to lead you into the persuit of evil.”

David Gemmell book White Wolf

Source: White Wolf

Lie, Strong, Evil, Cheating

“Most men judge your importance in their lives by how much you can hurt them.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Source: My Story

Hurtful, Hurt

“Men are punished by their sins, not for them.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Variant: We are punished by our sins not for them.
Source: Love, Life and Work
Source: The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard (1927), p. 12
in The Note Book, Kessinger Publishing (reprint 1998)
Context: If you err it is not for me to punish you. We are punished by our sins not for them.

For Men

“As is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity.
The wind scatters the leaves on the ground, but the live timber
Burgeons with leaves again in the season of spring returning.
So one generation of men will grow while another dies.”

Homér Iliad

VI. 146–149 (tr. R. Lattimore); Glaucus to Diomed.
Alexander Pope's translation:
: Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground:
Another race the following spring supplies,
They fall successive, and successive rise:
So generations in their course decay;
So flourish these, when those are past away.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)
Source: The Iliad

Spring, Season

“We earth men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things.”

Ray Bradbury book The Martian Chronicles

Source: The Martian Chronicles

Beauty

“Not everybody believes in ghosts, but I do. Do you know what they are, Trisha?

She had shaken her head slowly.

Men and women who can't get over their past… That's what ghosts are.”

Stephen King book Needful Things

Source: Needful Things

Women, Past

“There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and woman to fill our day;
But when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers & Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Dogs, Way, Nature, Sister

“So live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

The origin of this quote is often misattributed to Cicero; however, it is from Line 135-136 of Book 2, Satire 2 by Horace, "Quocirca vivite fortes, fortiaque adversis opponite pectora rebus." The English translation that most closely matches the one misrepresented as Cicero's is from a collection of Horace's prose written by E. C. Wickham, "So live, my boys, as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts."
Misattributed

Heart

“Why do magazines do this to women? It's
all about creating insecurity. Trying to make women feel like they're not good enough. And when women don't feel like they're good enough, guess what? Men win. That's how they keep us down.”

Candace Bushnell book Summer and the City

Source: Summer and the City

Women, Feeling

“No one is anyone, one single immortal man is all men. Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist.”

Jorge Luis Borges book The Immortal

"The Immortal" (1949)

God, World, Way

“Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?”

Jim Bouton (1939–2019) American baseball player, writer

Football

“When you become fully responisble for your life, you can become fully human; once you become human, you may discover what it mens to be a warrior.”

Dan Millman (1946) American self help writer

Life

“Men are always ready to die for us, but not to make our lives worth having. Cheap sentiment and bad logic.”

Louisa May Alcott book Jo's Boys

Source: Jo's Boys

“Treat 'em like dogs, and you'll have dogs' works and dogs' actions. Treat 'em like men, and you'll have men's works.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Source: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Dogs

“A writer can do nothing for men more necessary, satisfying, than just simply to reveal to them the infinite possibility of their own souls.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Soul

“I don't like it when I outweigh my men.”

Patricia Briggs book Moon Called

Source: Moon Called

“In my mind, the men and women of NASA are history's modern pioneers. They attempt the impossible, accept failure, and then back to the drawing board while the rest of us stand back and criticize.”

Dan Brown book Deception Point

Source: Deception Point

Women, History, Failure, Drawing

“Some men break your heart in two,
Some men fawn and flatter,
Some men never look at you;
And that cleans up the matter.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Source: Enough Rope

Heart

“We are men and our lot in life is to learn and to be hurled into inconceivable new worlds.”

Carlos Castaneda A Separate Reality

Source: A Separate Reality

Life, World, Learning

“He's definitely one of those men you love before you get to know.”

Sarah Strohmeyer (1950) American writer

Source: Sweet Love

Love

“Real men don’t moisturise.”

Edmund White (1940) American novelist and LGBT essayist

Our Young Man

“Men dream more about coming home than about leaving.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Dreams, Home

“Most men go through life unchallenged, except at the final moment.”

Frank Herbert book God Emperor of Dune

Source: God Emperor of Dune

Life

“I collected men with interesting names.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

“The example of a syllogism that he had studied in Kiesewetter's logic: Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal, had throughout his whole life seemed to him right only in relation to Caius, but not to him at all.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: The Death of Ivan Ilych

Life, Study

“Men are only as great as they are kind.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

“The strongest, toughest men all have compassion. They're not heartless and cold. You have to be man enough to have compassion - to care about people and about your children" (217) - John Singleton "Oh Man, I've Become My Father”

Denzel Washington (1954) actor, screenwriter, director, producer

Source: A Hand to Guide Me

Children, People

“Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense,
But good men starve for want of impudence.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Constantine the Great (1684), Epilogue.
Source: The Poetical Works of John Dryden

Sense

“Was there ever a more horrible blasphemy than the statement that all the knowledge of God is confined to this or that book? How dare men call God infinite, and yet try to compress Him within the covers of a little book!”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Source: Raja-Yoga

God, Books, Knowledge

“I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.”

Gustave Flaubert book November

Source: November

“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

Foreword to The Dreaded Comparison: Animal Slavery and Human Slavery (1996) by Marjorie Spiegel, p. 14 http://books.google.com/books?ei=je4zTPjrBcmTnQfXmMCLBA&ct=result&id=8u_tAAAAMAAJ&dq=dreaded+comparison+%22exist+for+their+own%22&q=%22exist+for+their+own%22.

Women, People, World, Animals

“They courted the face on the screen, the face of translucence, the face of wax on which men found it possible to imprint the image of their fantasy.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

“If something is wrong, it matters not if a thousand men are for it; you must still oppose it. If something is just, no amount of popular outcry should stay you from your course.”

Terry Goodkind book Naked Empire

Source: Naked Empire

“Men are like steel — when they lose their temper, they lose their worth.”

Chuck Norris (1940) American martial artist and actor

Though often attributed to Norris, this seems to have appeared as an anonymous proverb at least as early as 1961, in an edition of The Physical Educator
Misattributed

For Men