Quotes about men
page 29

“For glory lit, and life alive, for goals unreached and aims to strive. All men must try, the wind did see. It is the test, it is the dream.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

Life, Dreams

“The Great Depression in the United States, far from being a sign of the inherent instability of the private enterprise system, is a testament to how much harm can be done by mistakes on the part of a few men when they wield vast power over the monetary system of a country.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

Source: (1962), Ch. 3 The Control of Money, p. 50

Parting, Country

“Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Source: Night

Peaceful, Women, Suffering

“You need a new hobby, Rachel. Something other than nasty little men with visions of world domination.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Pale Demon

World

“A leader leads,” Ragnar said, “and you can’t ask men to risk death if you’re not willing to risk it yourself.”

Bernard Cornwell book The Last Kingdom

Source: The Last Kingdom

Death

“Men like women who know how to be subtle.”

Nicholas Sparks book True Believer

Source: True Believer

Women

“All through the night, men looked at the sky and were saddened by the stars.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22

Star, Night

“My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

"On My Friendly Critics"
Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922)
Source: Soliloquies in England & Later Soliloquies

God, Fashion, Universe

“If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Source: Kabir, Hajara Muhammad (2010). Northern women development. [Nigeria]. ISBN 978-978-906-469-4. OCLC 890820657

Life, Flying

“Men are easy,' he said, fingers tapping on his mahogany desk. 'A man's plumbing is like his mind: simple, very few surprises. You ladies, on the other hand… well, God put a lot of thought into making you.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

God

“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

World, Dreams, Problem, Reality

“More gold had been mined from the mind of men than the earth it self”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

“Liberate the minds of men and ultimately you will liberate the bodies of men.”

Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) Jamaica-born British political activist, Pan-Africanist, orator, and entrepreneur

“Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.”

James Allen book As a Man Thinketh

Source: As a Man Thinketh

Attitude

“My pacifism is an instinctive feeling, a feeling that possesses me because the murder of men is disgusting. My attitude is not derived from any intellectual theory but is based on my deepest antipathy to every kind of cruelty and hatred.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Feeling

“The two men who have done the greatest harm to the world are Christ and Columbus. Christ taught us guilt and sacrifice, to live only in the other world, and Columbus discovered America and materialism.”

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

Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

World, Christ

“I have both held and beheld unlimited power and of it I know but one thing. It drives men mad.'
- Alexander the Great”

Matthew Reilly (1974) Australian author

Source: Seven Deadly Wonders

Madness

“Most men lead lives of quiet aspiration.”

Robert Sheckley book Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?

Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?

“I suggest to my students that they write under a pseudonym for a week. That allows young men to write as women, and women as men. It allows them a lot of freedom they don't have ordinarily.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Women, Freedom

“Even a feeble-minded man wants to be like other men.”

Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon

Source: Flowers for Algernon (1966)

“I hate men who are afraid of women's strength.”

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

Source: Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love"--The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin

Women, Hate

“What the devil is Chocho?' Will whispered.
Horace's grin broadened. 'You are. It's what the men call you,' he said. Then he added, 'It's a term of great respect.'
Behind them, Halt nodded confirmation. 'Great respect,' he agreed.”

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

Source: The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

“The older I grow, the more I am convinced that there is no education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women.”

Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor

Women, Books, Education

“You men,' she says. 'You durn men.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

“Maybe all men are a drug. Sometimes they bring you down and sometimes, like now, they get you so high.”

Candace Bushnell book Sex and the City

Source: Sex and the City

“There was an old bastard named Lenin
Who did two or three million men in.
That's a lot to have done in
But where he did one in
That old bastard Stalin did ten in.”

Robert Conquest (1917–2015) poet and historian from England and the United States

“Ruin, eldest daughter of Zeus, she blinds us all, that fatal madness—she with those delicate feet of hers, never touching the earth, gliding over the heads of men to trap us all. She entangles one man, now another.”

Homér Iliad

Source: The Iliad

Daughters, Madness

“The big truth for men is that often we have to leave home in the first half of life before we can return home at a later stage and find our soul there.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Life, Truth, Home, Soul

“Ten men in our country could buy the whole world and ten million can't buy enough to eat.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

As quoted in The Quotable Will Rogers (2006) by Joseph H. Carter
As quoted in ...

World, Country

“Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.”

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

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

“Men… performed better when they understood why they were being asked to carry out a task.”

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

Source: The Invaders

“I can't count the men who have tried to seduce me away from my virtue by teaching me how to defend it.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

“With a bit of luck, his life was ruined forever. Always thinking that just behind some narrow door in all of his favorite bars, men in red woolen shirts are getting incredible kicks from things he’ll never know.”

Hunter S. Thompson book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Life, Thinking

“For like a poisonous breath over the fields, like a mass of locusts over Egypt, so the swarm of excuses is a general plaque, a ruinous infection among men, that eats off the sprouts of the Eternal.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

“There are some men in this world who are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father's one of them.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

World

“It has forever been thus: So long as men write what they think, then all of the other freedoms - all of them - may remain intact. And it is then that writing becomes a weapon of truth, an article of faith, an act of courage.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

Truth, Faith, Courage, Thinking

“Good God. Men everywhere.”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

God

“God fills us with all sorts of yearnings that go against the grain of the world—but the fact those yearnings often come to nothing, well, I doubt that’s God’s doing.” She cut her eyes at me and smiled. “I think we know that’s men’s doing.”

Sue Monk Kidd (1948) Novelist

Source: The Invention of Wings

God, World, Smile, Thinking

“Throughout my life my greatest benefactors have been my travels and my dreams. Very few men, living or dead, have helped me in my struggles.”

Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) Greek writer

Life, Dreams, Travel, Help

“I hadn't gotten far when I ran into Mason.
Good God. Men everywhere.”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

God

“Success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit…. They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Star, Success, Falseness

“I saw him open his mouth wide… as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the men before him.”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

“Police business is a hell of a problem. It’s a good deal like politics. It asks for the highest type of men, and there’s nothing in it to attract the highest type of men. So we have to work with what we get…”

Raymond Chandler book The Lady in the Lake

Source: The Lady in the Lake

Hell, Business, Problem

“The water caught the Falselight glimmer like layers of shifting, translucent mirrors and formed split-second works of art in the air, but men cursed it anyway, because it made their heads wet.”

Scott Lynch The Lies of Locke Lamora

Source: The Lies of Locke Lamora

Art, Water

“In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate - look to his character.”

Noah Webster (1758–1843) lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, writer, editor and author

“I began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night, and the satisfaction that the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the restless eye.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Women, Feeling, Night

“I've given up men. It's true. At first, I was just going to give up attorneys, but that seemed immature - and far too exclusive, so I'm playing it safe and giving up all the penis-carrying humans.”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Simply Irresistible

“I want you to go back into the barrack and tell the men to come out after the storm. Tell them to look up at me tied here. Tell them I’ll open my eyes and look back at them, and they’ll know hat I survived.”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

“Men all do about the same thing when they wake up.”

John Steinbeck book Cannery Row

Source: Cannery Row

“Men honor what lies within the sphere of their knowledge, but do not realize how dependent they are on what lies beyond it.”

Zhuangzi (-369–-286 BC) classic Chinese philosopher

Knowledge, Dependency

“Besides, when I look around me at the men, I feel that God never meant us women to be too particular.”

Marie Jenney Howe (1870–1934) American writer

Source: An Anti-Suffrage Monologue

Women, God, Feeling

“A pastor should never complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

God, People

“The tragedy of life is not so much what
men suffer, but rather what they miss.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

Sad, Life, Suffering

“A person who already displays … cruelty to animals is also no less hardened towards men. We can already know the human heart, even in regard to animals.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Part II, p. 212
Lectures on Ethics (1924)

Heart, Animals, Personality

“Some men fall from grace. Some are pushed.”

Jim Butcher book Skin Game

Source: Skin Game

“No wonder men got impervious to superficial pain, I thought. It came from this habit of hammering each other incessantly.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Pain

“Men endured so much for war, but for peace they dared nothing.”

Olaf Stapledon (1886–1950) British novelist and philosopher

Source: The Seed and the Flower

War, Peace

“I love everything about Tyler Durden, his courage and his smarts. His nerve. Tyler is funny and charming and forceful and independent, and men look up to him and expect him to change their world. Tyler is capable and free, and I am not.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Love, World, Courage, Change

“It has been the dream of very few men to rule the entire world.
- Dr. Grief”

Anthony Horowitz book Point Blanc

Source: Point Blank

World, Dreams

“I do like men who come out frankly and own that they are not gods.”

Louisa May Alcott book Jo's Boys

Source: Jo's Boys

God

“The road to hell was paved with the bones of men who did not know when to quit fighting.”

Paulette Jiles book Enemy Women

Source: Enemy Women

Hell, Fight

“I worry about the men of your time, Grace. They all seem to be great fools. (Julian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

Fools, Time

“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.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Source: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

Women, Thinking

“Most women complain that there are no single, straight men left. I’d just like to meet one who’s human.”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

Women

“To affirm that men and women are persons and as persons should be free, and yet to do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality, is a farce.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Women, Reality, Personality

“Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Dreams

“I think, when men tell women to lose weight, it's a diversion from their own lack of size in certain areas.”

Candace Bushnell book Sex and the City

Source: Sex and the City

Women, Thinking

“The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.”

B.F. Skinner (1904–1990) American behaviorist

Contingencies of Reinforcement: A Theoretical Analysis (1969).
Source: Contingencies Of Reinforcement: A Theoretical Analysis

Question, Thinking

“Only in their dreams can men be truly free. 'Twas always thus, and always thus will be.”

Tom Schulman (1950) American film director, screenwriter

Source: Dead Poets Society

Dreams

“I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Christmas, Peace, Christmas

“I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Pain

“One must not live one's life through men but must be complete on oneself as a woman of substance.”

Helen Fielding book Bridget Jones's Diary

Source: Bridget Jones's Diary

Life

“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Speech in the House of Commons, June 18, 1940 "War Situation" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1940/jun/18/war-situation#column_60. <br class="br">The Second World War (1939–1945) <br class="br">Source: Never Give In!: The Best of Winston Churchill's Speeches <br class="br">Context: Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us now. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.

“A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes--will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.”

John Stuart Mill book On Liberty

Source: On Liberty

“All stories told have been told before. We tell them to ourselves, as did all men who ever were. And all men who ever will be. The only things new are the names.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

“All through life there were distinctions - toilets for men, toilets for women; clothes for men, clothes for women - then, at the end, the graves are identical.”

Leila Aboulela (1964) writer, playwright

Source: Minaret

Life, Women, Clothes

“As he drank, little brown drops of coffee clung to his mustache like dew. Men will live like billy goats if they are let alone.”

Charles Portis book True Grit

Source: True Grit (1968), Chapter 5, p. 78 : thoughts of 'Mattie Ross'

Coffee

“If men gave birth, they'd be less inconsiderate.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

Birth

“As Proust once said, classically beautiful women should be left to men without imagination.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: Essays In Love

Women, Beauty, Imagination

“Touch me. Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. I am lonely here. O, touch me soon, now. What is that word known to all men? I am quiet here alone. Sad too. Touch, touch me.”

James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish novelist and poet

Source: Ulysses by James Joyce

Sadness

“Force always attracts men of low morality.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

The World As I See It, Einstein, Citadel Press (reprint 2006; originally published in 1934), p. 5
1930s

“All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men are Socrates.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Love and Death (1975)
Context: If I don't kill him he'll make war all through Europe. But murder... the most foul of all crimes. What would Socrates say? All those Greeks were homosexuals. Boy, they must have had some wild parties. I bet they all took a house together in Crete for the summer. A: Socrates is a man. B: All men are mortal. C: All men are Socrates. That means all men are homosexuals. Heh... I'm not a homosexual. Once, some cossacks whistled at me. I happen to have the kind of body that excites both persuasions. You know, some men are heterosexual and some men are bisexual and some men don't think about sex at all, you know... they become lawyers.

“Women won't have total equality until men can get pregnant.”

Diana Palmer (1946) American romance novelist

Women