“Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.”
George Bernard Shaw Man and Superman
#57
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)
Source: Man and Superman
Quotes about men page 23
Karen Armstrong (1944) author and comparative religion scholar from Great Britain
Source: Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life
Gena Showalter (1975) American writer
Source: The Darkest Seduction
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
“Men control the world, but women control the men.”
Sherry Argov (1977) American writer
Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship
Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha
Source: Memoirs of a Geisha
“Men suck, even imaginary ones”
James Patterson book Sundays at Tiffany's
Source: Sundays at Tiffany's
“In my experience, men who understand women seem to rarely want to have anything to do with them.”
Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed
Source: And the Mountains Echoed
“To believe all men honest is folly. To believe none is something worse.”
John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States
Victor Hugo book Les Misérables
Variant: What is said about men often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do.
Source: Les Misérables
Gavin de Becker (1954) American engineer
Source: The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence
“We tried not to smile, for smiling only encourages men to bore you and waste your time.”
Sheila Heti book How Should a Person Be?
Source: How Should a Person Be?
“For men love what they cannot have, and hate what they cannot control.”
Robin Maxwell (1948) American writer
Source: The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn
“Men are driven by two principal impulses, either by love or by fear.”
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician, Writer and Author
Source: The Discourses
Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul
Source: A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard (1911), p. 151
Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician
“Men are more interesting in books than they are in real life.”
Annie Barrows book The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Source: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
“If the world were a logical place, men would ride side saddle.”
Rita Mae Brown (1944) Novelist, poet, screenwriter, activist
Sudden Death (1983)
Variant: "If the World Made Sense, Men Would Ride Sidesaddle" was the title of a 1993 one-man comedy by Ed Navis, performed at Wings Theatre, New York.
Variant: If the world were a logical place, then men would ride side-saddle.
“Military men are "dumb, stupid animals to be used" as pawns for foreign policy.”
Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State
Kissinger has denied saying it.
The only evidence that Kissinger ever said this was a claim in the book, The Final Days, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, in chapter 14 (p.194 in the 1995 paperback edition). Woodward & Bernstein claimed that one of Kissinger's political foes, Alexander Haig, had told someone unnamed, that he (Haig) had heard Kissinger say it. That's triple hearsay, made even weaker by the fact that one of the parties is anonymous. Kissinger has denied ever saying it, and it was never substantiated by Haig, nor by anyone of known identity who claimed to have heard it. As Kirkus Reviews noted about the whole book, "none of it is substantiated in any assessable way."
In fact, the quote is not even very plausible, on its face. Kissinger served with distinction in the U.S. Army during WWII, and was awarded the Bronze Star. He has always been very respectful of other servicemen and their sacrifices. For him to have said such a thing would have been wildly out of character. In fact, the awkward phrasing doesn't even sound like Kissinger, whose English prose is consistently measured and careful, despite his heavy accent, even when he speaks extemporaneously.
Misattributed
“The best laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft a-gley”
Robert Burns (1759–1796) Scottish poet and lyricist
To a Mouse, st. 7 (1785)
Source: Collected Poems of Robert Burns
Context: The best laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft a-gley;
And leave us naught but grief and pain
For promised joy.
“She threw herself eagerly into the paths of unsuitable men.”
Anne Taintor (1953) American artist
“God created men to test the souls of women.”
Robert A. Heinlein Job: A Comedy of Justice
Source: Job: A Comedy of Justice
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), History
Context: The difference between men is in their principle of association. Some men classify objects by color and size and other accidents of appearance; others by intrinsic likeness, or by the relation of cause and effect. The progress of the intellect is to the clearer vision of causes, which neglects surface differences. To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. For the eye is fastened on the life, and slights the circumstance. Every chemical substance, every plant, every animal in its growth, teaches the unity of cause, the variety of appearance.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer book The Cost of Discipleship
Source: Discipleship (1937), The Enemy, the "Extraordinary", p. 147.
Source: The Cost of Discipleship
Susan Andersen (1950) American writer
Source: Burning Up
“On one issue, at least, men and women agree: they both distrust women.”
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer
“Some men, under the notion of weeding out prejudice, eradicate virtue, honesty and religion.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet
Bell Hooks book Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center
p. 12.
Source: Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984), Chapter 1: Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory, p. 13-14.
Context: Recent focus on the issue of racism has generated discourse but has had little impact on the behavior of white feminists towards black women. Often the white women who are busy publishing papers and books on "unlearning racism" remain patronizing and condescending when they relate to black women. This is not surprising given that frequently their discourse is aimed solely in the direction of a white audience and the focus solely on changing attitudes rather than addressing racism in a historical and political context. They make us the "objects" of their privileged discourse on race. As "objects," we remain unequals, inferiors. Even though they may be sincerely concerned about racism, their methodology suggests they are not yet free of the type of remain intact if they are to maintain their authoritative positions.
Context: Racist stereotypes of the strong, superhuman black woman are operative myths in the minds of many white women, allowing them to ignore the extent to which black women are likely to be victimized in this society and the role white women may play in the maintenance and perpetuation of that victimization.... By projecting onto black women a mythical power and strength, white women both promote a false image of themselves as powerless, passive victims and deflect attention away from their aggressiveness, their power, (however limited in a white supremacist, male-dominated state) their willingness to dominate and control others. These unacknowledged aspects of the social status of many white women prevent them from transcending racism and limit the scope of their understanding of women's overall social status in the United States. Privileged feminists have largely been unable to speak to, with, and for diverse groups of women because they either do not understand fully the inter-relatedness of sex, race, and focus on class and gender, they tend to dismiss race or they make a point of acknowledging that race is important and then proceed to offer an analysis in which race is not considered.
“What God says is best, is best, though all the men in the world are against it.”
John Bunyan (1628–1688) English Christian writer and preacher
Source: The Pilgrims Progress
“The day Henry made a choice… that some men are just too interesting to die.”
Seth Grahame-Smith (1976) US fiction author
Source: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
“If men could only know each other, they would never either idolize or hate.”
Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul
Source: A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard (1911), p. 13.
“Men are reasoning rather than reasonable animals.”
Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) Founding Father of the United States
Source: The Works Of Alexander Hamilton
Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) English crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer
Source: The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers. Vol. 1, 1899-1936: The Making of a Detective Novelist
“I will not get upset over men, but instead be poised and cool ice-queen.”
Helen Fielding book Bridget Jones's Diary
Source: Bridget Jones's Diary
“Really, it was difficult to determine which I had most reason to fear—dogs, alligators or men!”
Solomon Northup book Twelve Years a Slave
Source: Twelve Years a Slave
“Get on fire for God and men will come and see you burn.”
John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian
“Women need a reason to have sex; men need only a place.”
Nelson DeMille book Wild Fire
Source: Wild Fire
Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer
The Manly Wisdom of Will Rogers (2001)
Variant: There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.
Glenn Beck book An Inconvenient Book
The Income Gap: The Rich Get Richer, Good for Them
An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems
2007-11-20
Threshold Editions
1416560440
83
2000s
“You had evil inside you, and you indulged it. Men will always indulge it.”
John Connolly The Book of Lost Things
Source: The Book of Lost Things
“You won't find reasonable men on the tops of tall mountains.”
Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author
“There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw.”
Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles
Source: The Song of Achilles
Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union
Scopes Trial, Dayton, Tennessee (13 July 1925)