Quotes about men
page 28

“For a woman the objective is often a committed relationship also known as the destination. For a men roadtrip on the way to the destination is often the more fun.”

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

Way

“I listen with attention to the judgment of all men;
but so far as I can remember,
I have followed none but my own.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

“His books were the closest thing he had to furniture and he lived in them the way other men live in easy chairs.”

Laura Hillenbrand book Seabiscuit: An American Legend

Source: Seabiscuit: An American Legend

Books, Way

“In order to induce the process of decay, water is necessary. I think that, in the case of women, men are the water.”

Natsuo Kirino book Grotesque

Source: Grotesque

Women, Thinking, Water

“Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.”

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

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Art

Sense

“No, not you two. Stay here.'
'Does he just not get how unfair and sexist that is?' Eve asked. 'Men.'
'You really want to go first?'
'Of course no. But I'd like the chance toto go first.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Lord of Misrule

Chance

“It is not titles that make men illustrious, but men who make titles illustrious.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book Discourses on Livy

Book 3, Ch. 38
Discourses on Livy (1517)

“If so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Love, Heart

“A small but noteworthy note. I've seen so many young men over the years who think they're running at other young men. They are not. They are running at me.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Thinking

“And, of course men know best about everything, except what women know better.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Source: Middlemarch

Women

“This thought strengthened in me my belief that all men, without exception, deserve to be pitied, if only because they are alive.”

Alberto Moravia book The Woman of Rome

Source: The Woman of Rome

“Free women," said Anna, wryly. She added, with an anger new to Molly, so that she earned another quick scrutinizing glance from her friend: "They still define us in terms of relationships with men, even the best of them.”

Doris Lessing book The Golden Notebook

Source: The Golden Notebook

Women, Anger

“The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, the more widespread is the decline of religious belief.”

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

Knowledge

“People, he thought, were as hungry for a sight of joy as he had always been--for a moment's relief from that gray load of suffering which seemed so inexplicable and unnecessary. He had never been able to understand why men should be unhappy.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

People, Understanding, Suffering, Joy

“I am not fit to marry. I am often cross, and I like my own way, and I have a distaste for men.”

Anthony Trollope book He Knew He Was Right

Source: He Knew He Was Right

Way

“Wo men shi jie bai xiong di-we are more than brothers, Will.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

“Watching him with one eye, she wondered if men ever figured out that they were more appealing when they were pursuing their own work than when they were pursuing a woman.”

Mary Doria Russell The Sparrow

Source: The Sparrow

“Men are not dogs. We merely think we are and, on occasion, act as if we are. But, by believing in our nobler nature, women have the amazing power to inspire us to live up to it.”

Neil Strauss book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

Source: The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists (2005)

Women, Dogs, Nature, Thinking

“But women do not say 'We', except at some congress of feminists or similar formal demonstration; men say 'women', and women use the same word in referring to themselves.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Source: The Second Sex

Women

“When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Speech at Amherst College
Context: When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.

“Frequency of sex – Women sometimes wanted; men always needed.”

Nicholas Sparks book At First Sight

Source: At First Sight

Women, Sex

“The most terrible things men do, they do in the name of love."— Madame Dorothea”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Love

“In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth, women are not merely tolerated but valued."

(From a speech read on video on August 31, 1995 before the NGO Forum on Women, Beijing, China)”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

Opening Keynote Address at NGO Forum on Women, Beijing China (1995)
Context: This year is the International Year for Tolerance. The United Nations has recognized that "tolerance, human rights, democracy and peace are closely related. Without tolerance, the foundations form democracy and respect for human rights cannot be strengthened, and the achievement of peace will remain elusive." My own experience during the years I have been engaged in the democracy movement of Burma has convinced me of the need to emphasize the positive aspect of tolerance. It is not enough simply to "live and let live": genuine tolerance requires an active effort to try to understand the point of view of others; it implies broad-mindedness and vision, as well as confidence in one's own ability to meet new challenges without resorting to intransigence or violence. In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth women are not merely "tolerated", they are valued. Their opinions are listened to with respect, they are given their rightful place in shaping the society in which they live.

Women, Confidence, Reading

“The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

“Girls have to be strong to protect the men they love.”

Naoko Takeuchi (1967) Japanese manga artist

Love, Girl, Strong

“With false names, on the right nets, they could be anybody. Old men, middle-aged women, anybody, as long as they were careful about the way they wrote. All that anyone would see were the words, their ideas. Every citizen started equal, on the nets.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Women, Age, Way, Idea

“Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

“A great many men are mad, and no one knows it. They do not know it themselves”

Agatha Christie The Secret Adversary

Source: The Secret Adversary

Madness

“Most men are reasonably useful in a crisis. The difficulty lies in convincing them that the situation has reached a critical point”

Elizabeth Peters The Curse of the Pharaohs

Source: The Curse of the Pharaohs

“So shall the world go on,
To good malignant, to bad men benign,
Under her own weight groaning.”

John Milton book Paradise Lost

Source: Paradise Lost

World

“The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.”

H.L. Mencken book Notes on Democracy

Part 2, chapter 4 http://books.google.com/books?id=Xw-DAAAAMAAJ&q=%22The+demagogue+is+one+who+preaches+doctrines+he+knows+to+be+untrue+to+men+he+knows+to+be+idiots%22&pg=PA103#v=onepage 1920s, Notes on Democracy (1926) Context: The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. The demaslave is one who listens to what these idiots have to say and pretends to believe it himself.

“Being the boss anywhere is lonely. Being a female boss in a world of mostly men is especially so.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

World

“Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others.”

Ayn Rand book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)

“Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

Personality

“Many young men started down a false path to their true destiny. Time and fortune usually set them aright.”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Source: The Godfather

Time, Falseness

“Quoting: "Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.”

James Boswell (1740–1795) Scottish lawyer, diarist and author

Source: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

Women, Quotes, Thinking

“Once a month, some women act like men act all the time.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

Women, Time

“That’s the one nice thing about being a dork about men: you can sometimes play it off as restrained and classy.”

Mindy Kaling (1979) actress, writer, comedian

“To be a woman is a great adventure;
To drive men mad is a heroic thing.”

Borís Pasternak book Doctor Zhivago

Source: Doctor Zhivago

Madness

“He had known several men who blew their heads off, and he had pondered it much. It seemed to him it was probably because they could not take enough happiness just from the sky and the moon to carry them over the low feelings that came to all men.”

Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove

Source: Lonesome Dove

Feeling, Happiness

“Men. You can't live with them… and you can't legally shoot them. I tossed out my husband eight years ago and got a llama instead. Best decision I ever made.”

Jodi Picoult book Lone Wolf

Source: Lone Wolf

Decision

“The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Stupidity

“The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.”

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

World, Behavior, Nature, Change

“slept all night in the cedar grove,
i was born to ramble, born to rove,
some men are searchin' for the holy grail,
but there ain't nothin' sweeter
than ridin' the rails”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

Night

“Don't you know that boys don't cry?' Adam grinned.
'Shall I tell you something I've only recently discovered,' I replied, not attempting to hide the tears rolling down my face and not the least bit ashamed of them. 'Boys don't cry, but real men do.”

Malorie Blackman book Boys Don't Cry

Source: Boys Don't Cry

Boy, Tear, Cry

“She swore vengeance on all men with dark hearts.”

Lisa Papademetriou (1971) American writer

Source: Siren's Storm

Heart

“Having been borne across the world, we are translated men. It is normally supposed that something always gets lost in translation; I cling, obstinately, to the notion that something can also be gained.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

World

“Men didn't respect beauty… they used it.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Montana Sky

Beauty

“I keep six honest serving-men:
(They taught me all I knew)
Their names are What and Where and When
And How and Why and Who.”

Rudyard Kipling book Just So Stories

The Elephant's Child.
Just So Stories (1902)

“In the immemorial style of young men under pressure, they decided to lie down for a while and waste time.”

Michael Chabon book The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Source: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Lie, Time

“And none at all has ridden at the king's side since Aerinha, goddess of honor and flame, first taught men to forge their blades. You'd think Aerinha would have had better sense.”

Robin McKinley book The Hero and the Crown

Source: The Hero and the Crown

Thinking, Sense

“Do you want to know why men name their penis? So the most important decisions in their life aren't made by a stranger.”

Linda Howard (1950) American writer

Source: After the Night

Life, Decision

“Inanimate objects are harmless indeed, Mr. Mortmain. But one cannot always say the same of the men who use them.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: The Infernal Devices, Clockwork Angel (2010), p. 150, spoken by Henry

“Men throw huge shadows on the lawn, don't they? Then, all their lives, they try to run to fit the shadows. But the shadows are always longer.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Source: I Sing the Body Electric! & Other Stories

“When men are oppressed, it's a tragedy. When women are oppressed, it's tradition.”

Letty Cottin Pogrebin (1939) American author, journalist, lecturer, and social justice activist

Source: Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America

For women, Women

“We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?”

Christina Rossetti book Goblin Market and Other Poems

Source: Goblin Market and Other Poems

“A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. His auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

A Defence of Poetry http://www.bartleby.com/27/23.html (1821)

Solitude, Singing

“Woman and children can afford to be careless, men can not"-Don Corleone”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Source: The Godfather

Children

“She maintained a careful balance by her window, never allowing the men to come too close, never allowing them to stray too far.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

“I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.”

Richard Baxter (1615–1691) English Puritan church leader, poet, and hymn-writer

“Women know things that men will never know. We keep the best secrets. We tell the best stories.”

Alice Hoffman (1952) Novelist, young-adult writer, children's writer

Source: Incantation

Women, Secret

“When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's [children's] minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.”

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

Children, Learning

“Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are men to rocks and mountains?”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Variant: What are men to rocks and mountains?
Source: Pride and Prejudice

Disappointment, Mountain

“On this road there are no godspoke men. They are gone and I am left and they have taken with them the world.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

World

“War don't ennoble men, it turns 'em into dogs. It poisons the soul.”

James Jones book The Thin Red Line

Source: The Thin Red Line

War, Dogs, Soul

“But I wasn't happy… when I heard you two had assaulted Castle Macindaw with just thirty men,' [said Halt].
'Thirty-three,' mumbled Horace…
The Ranger gave him a withering look. 'Oh, pardon me… three more men does make a lot of difference.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

Happiness

“I begin with the young. We older ones are used up but my magnificent youngsters! Are there finer ones anywhere in the world? Look at all these men and boys! What material! With you and I, we can make a new world.”

Adolf Hitler book Hitler's Letters and Notes

Adolf Hitler c. 1933; as quoted in Hitler Speaks http://books.google.com/books?id=PndurCstDZMC&pg=PA251 (1939), by Hermann Rauschning, London: Thornton Butterworth, p. 247. Misattributed Source: Hitler's Letters and Notes Context: I am beginning with the young. We older ones are used up. Yes, we are old already. We are rotten to the marrow. We have no unrestrained instincts left. We are cowardly and sentimental. We are bearing the burden of a humiliating past, and have in our blood the dull recollection of serfdom and servility. But my magnificent youngsters! Are there finer ones anywhere in the world? Look at these young men and boys! What material! With them, I can make a new world.

World, Boy

“You'll use it [Perrin's axe], boy, and as long as you hate using it, you would use it more wisely than most men would. Wait. If ever you don't hate it any longer, then will be the time to throw it as far as you can and run the other way.”

Robert Jordan book The Eye of the World

Elyas Machera
(15 January 1990)
Source: The Eye of the World

Hate, Way, Boy, Time

“Harry Dresden: Boobs are near the center of the universe, until you turn twenty-five or so. Which is also when young men’s auto insurance rates go down. This is not a coincidence.”

Jim Butcher book Ghost Story

Source: The Dresden Files, Ghost Story (2011), Chapter 9

Universe

“Cast me into a dungeon;, burn me at the state, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives -- but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers

Source: Starship Troopers

God, Happiness

“Tell them there are no holes for your fingers in the masks of men. Tell them how could you ever even hope to love what you can't grab onto.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Source: Girl With Curious Hair

Love, Hope

“Any time your life is at stake and you can't find even one woman to come forward and say, 'This is a good man,' your problem isn't what kind of woman THEY are. Your problem is what kind of men YOU are.”

Pearl Cleage (1948) American novelist

Source: Just Wanna Testify

Life, Problem, Time

“Men of God and men of war have strange affinities.”

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

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

God, War

“I had to wonder if men were so blinded by beauty that they would feel privileged to live their lives with an actual demon, so long as it was a beautiful demon.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Beauty, Feeling

“… some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

Michael Caine movie The Dark Knight

Movie The Dark Knight, character Alfred Pennyworth

World, Money

“It is a ridiculous thing for a man not to fly from his own badness, which is indeed possible, but to fly from other men's badness, which is impossible.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Flying

“All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few, who are the loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least free of all.”

Thomas Pynchon book Gravity's Rainbow

Source: Gravity's Rainbow

Freedom, Animals

“Men are more moral than they think and far more immoral than they can imagine.”

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

Imagination, Thinking

“I have heard men talk about the blessings of freedom," he said to himself, "but I wish any wise man would teach me what use to make of it now that I have it.”

Walter Scott book Ivanhoe

Source: Ivanhoe

Freedom

“The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D. C. This wasn't for any religious reasons. They couldn't find three wise men and a virgin.”

Jay Leno (1950) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, voice actor and television host

“Though it cost the blood of millions of white men, let it come. Let justice be done.”

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

Justice

“Good Lord, woman. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that men have a specified word count set aside each day and if I don’t stop talking, my tongue will explode? (Syn)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of Fire

“Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must at that moment become the center of the universe.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Nobel acceptance speech (1986)

Women, Religion, Universe

“It is the mark of the mind untrained to take its own processes as valid for all men, and its own judgments for absolute truth.”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Source: Magical and Philosophical Commentaries on The Book of the Law

Truth

“Heaven and hell seem out of proportion to me: the actions of men do not deserve so much.”

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

El infierno y el paraíso me parecen desproporcionados. Los actos de los hombres no merecen tanto.
As quoted in Borges Verbal (1999) edited by Pilar Bravo and Mario Paoletti, p. 156

Hell