Quotes about men
page 44

“Q: If you find so much that is unworthy of reverence in the United States, then why do you live here?
A: Why do men go to zoos?”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)

“It was clear to me that men and women were equal — if not more so.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

A joke used during his campaign speeches, about childhood impressions of hearing his parents arguing; as quoted in "Gore Campaign, Trailing Among Women, Sharpens Its Pitch to Them" by Melinda Henneberger in The New York Times (6 July 1999) http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E02E2DE1E3DF935A35754C0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all As quoted in "The 2000 Campaign : The Vice President" by David Barstow in The New York Times (12 August 2000) http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9404EFD6153FF931A2575BC0A9669C8B63. Variant: When my sister and I were growing up, there was never any doubt in our minds that men and women were equal, if not more so.

Women

“The holy spirit means the invisible power of Jehovah, holy because he is holy. This power of Jehovah operated upon the minds of honest men who loved and who were devoted to righteousness, directing them in the writing of the Bible. The spirit of God, i. e., his invisible power, moved upon the waters and thereby he created.”

Joseph Franklin Rutherford (1869–1942) American judge

The Harp of God (1921)

Love, God, Water

“Men think it right to eat animals, because they are led to believe that God sanctions it. This is untrue. No matter in what books it may be written that it is not sinful to slay animals and to eat them, it is more clearly written in the heart of man than in any books that animals are to be pitied and should not be slain any more than human beings. We all know this if we do not choke the voice of our conscience.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

The Pathway of Life: Teaching Love and Wisdom (posthumous), Part I, International Book Publishing Company, New York, 1919, p. 68

God, Books, Thinking, Heart

“I remember her standing in the tall grass and cattails
Away from the windows at the end of the day.
Watching the men from the landing in the tall hats & coat-tails.
She'd never look different, but something would change.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

A Mind with a Heart of Its Own, written with Jeff Lynne
Lyrics, Full Moon Fever (1989)

Grass, Change

“The expression of satisfaction at the acts of torture one is inflicting on helpless, trussed, naked victims is only part of the story. There is the primal satisfaction of being photographed, to which one is more inclined to respond not with a stiff, direct gaze (as in former times) but with glee. The events are in part designed to be photographed. The grin is a grin for the camera. There would be something missing if, after stacking the naked men, you couldn't take a picture of them.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Regarding the Torture of Others (2004)

Time, Parting

“No one can understand history without continually relating the long periods which are constantly mentioned to the experiences of our own short lives. Five years is a lot. Twenty years is the horizon to most people. Fifty years is antiquity. To understand how the impact of destiny fell upon any generation of men one must first imagine their position and then apply the time-scale of our own lives.”

Winston S. Churchill book A History of the English-Speaking Peoples

Vol I; The Birth of Britain
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (1956–58)

People, Imagination, History, Understanding

“We were about to board the planes for the flight back to the United States. Jim Jones didn't want us to leave, at least not alive. A tractor trailer loaded with men armed with shotguns and rifles pulled up and opened fire on us at that airstrip. Congressman Ryan was gunned down, having been shot 40 times. The first and only congressman in the history of this country to be assassinated during the line of duty. I was shot five times and left to bleed on that airstrip for 22 hours. Back at Jonestown, over 900 people lost their lives in a mass murder and suicide that night. This is what I awoke to on that long day. I was 28 years old, and I was waiting to die. I laid awake all night fearing some of the gunmen would come back and finish us off. Time passed, and local Guyanese people offered me rum to try and get me through the night. I had a lot of time to think. I promised God that if I lived, I would make every day count. I promised that I would make something out of my life if I was allowed to keep my life. Well, here I am. I have chosen a career as a public servant. One, I hope many of you will contemplate as you move forward in your lives.”

Jackie Speier (1950) American politician

Jackie Speier, Commencement Speaker http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/2006/spring/comm06.htm, San Francisco State University, 2006

Life, God, People, Fear

“Like many of her sex, Sophie was fiercely competitive with other women, working on the crackpot theory that if she could be better in some way, men would like her more, respect her. Make her happy. She never cottoned on that the men she was attracted to, the men who found her attractive, didn’t like women.”

Craig Ferguson book Between the Bridge and the River

Between the Bridge and the River (2006)

Women, Sex, Way, Happiness

“Som thingis that prouoke young men to wed in haste,
Show after weddyng, that hast maketh waste.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Some things that provoke young men to wed in haste,
Show after wedding, that haste makes waste.
Part I, chapter 2.
Proverbs (1546)

Wedding

“We must examine the degree to which we coddle middle-class girls. There is something sick about it. The girls I see on campuses are often innocuous, with completely homogenized personalities, miserable, anorexic and bulimic. The feminist movement teaches them that it's men's fault, but it isn't. These girls go out into the world as heiresses of all the affluence in the universe. They are the most pampered and most affluent girls on the globe. So stop complaining about men. You're getting all the rewards that come with the nice-girl persona you've chosen. When you get into trouble and you're batting your eyes and someone is offending you and you are too nice to deal with it, that's a choice. Assess your persona. Realize the degree to which your niceness may invoke people to say lewd and pornographic things to you — sometimes to violate your niceness. The more you blush, the more people want to do it. Understand your part of it and learn to parry. Sex talk is a game. The girls in the Sixties loved it. If you don't want some professor to call you honey, tell him.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Playboy interview (May 1995)

Love, People, World, Sex

“There was a world of mutants, men and women who were more than normal men and women, persons who had certain human talents and certain human understandings which the normal men and women of the world had never known, or having known, could not utilize in their entirety, unable to use intelligently all the mighty powers which lay dormant in their brains.”

Clifford D. Simak book Ring Around the Sun

Ring Around the Sun (1954)

Women, World, Intelligence, Understanding

“I've always been indifferent to dressing. Amita Malik got it right when she put me among the worst dressed men in India. But yes, I am a born joker.”

Khushwant Singh (1915–2014) Indian novelist and journalist

“We've Had So Many Donkeys as PM"

Indifference

“It is realized that if there is to be peace in the world, it must be attained through men and with man, in his nature and mores, just about as he now is. Intensive effort is exerted to reach the hearts and minds of men with the vital pleas for peace and human understanding, to the end that human attitudes and relations may be steadily improved. But this is a process of international education, or better, education for international living, and it is at best gradual. Men change their attitudes and habits slowly, and but grudgingly divorce their minds from fears, suspicions, and prejudices.”

Ralph Bunche (1904–1971) American diplomat

Some Reflections on Peace in Our Time (1950)

World, Education, Fear, Peace

“Look after him, Lieutenant. An army isn't made of it's officers, you know, though we officers like to think it is. An army is no better than its men, and when you find good men, you must look after them. That's an officer's job.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Colonel Jean Gudin, p. 353
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Tiger (1997)

Thinking

“It's hard to think that in cities there's men who are goin' to mad,
Each strivin' to beat his fellows and get what the others had;
And from this here peaceful viewpoint, such doin's look bad, plum bad.”

Arthur Chapman (poet) (1873–1935) American poet and newspaper columnist

The Herder's Reverie, st. 3. Out Where the West Begins and Other Western Verses http://www.cowboypoetry.com/ac.htm#outbk (1917)

Peace, Thinking, Madness

“"This is a very old argument. The greatest happiness of the greatest number. If you think about it, you'll find it always works out that a few suffer for the good of the rest."
"In stories," Gair agreed hopelessly. "brave men die defending the rest. But this isn't like that!"
"Call it the modern version," Mr Claybury suggested kindly.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Power of Three

Source: Power of Three (1976), p. 201.

Thinking, Suffering, Happiness

“Hail Éarendel, brightest of angels
above the middle-earth sent unto men.”

Cynewulf Anglo Saxon poet

"Crist", as translated by Humphrey Carpenter in Tolkien: A Biography (1977), p. 64

Angels

“For the task assigned them
Men aren't smart enough or sly
Any rogue can blind them
With a clever lie.”

Bertolt Brecht The Threepenny Opera

Polly Peachum, in "The Song of the Futility of All Human Endeavor"; Act 3, scene 1, p. 75
The Threepenny Opera (1928)

Lie

“to men and women there falls the task of exploring truth with their reason, and in this their nobility consists.”

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint

Encyclical Fides et Ratio, 14 September 1998 Source: www.vatican.va http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio_en.html

Women, Truth

“The Prophet said, "By Him in Whose Hands my life is! Were it not for some men amongst the believers who dislike to be left behind me and whom I cannot provide with means of conveyance, I would certainly never remain behind any Sariya' (army-unit) setting out in Allah's Cause. By Him in Whose Hands my life is! I would love to be martyred in Allah's Cause and then get resurrected and then get martyred, and then get resurrected again and then get martyred and then get resurrected again and then get martyred.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Narrated Abu Huraira, in Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 52, Number 54
Sunni Hadith

Love, Life

“Reprove not in their wrath incensed men,
Good counsel comes clean out of season then;
But when his fury is appeased and past,
He will conceive his fault, and mend at last.”

Thomas Randolph (poet) (1605–1635) English poet and dramatist

"Necessary Observations", Precept 22
Poems (pub. 1638)

Past, Season

“Racecar driving is a lot like sex; all men think they're good at it.”

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

Said on a 2009 episode (13.7) of British motoring program Top Gear.
Miscellaneous

Sex, Thinking

“Every set is a man's world. Even on 'The L Word,' the crew was primarily men. The whole world is a man's world, unless you're in a nunnery. And even that is colored by what you're allowed, what doctrine you're allowed to practice.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Interview at Reading Eagle (13 February 2011) http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=286772.

World, Color

“Those who betray or subvert the Constitution are guilty of sedition and/or treason, are domestic enemies and should and will be punished accordingly. It also stands to reason that anyone who sympathizes with the enemy or gives aid or comfort to said enemy is likewise guilty. I have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic and I will. And I will because not only did I swear to, but I believe in what it stands for in every bit of my heart, soul and being. I know in my heart that I am right in my struggle, Steve. I have come to peace with myself, my God and my cause. Blood will flow in the streets, Steve. Good vs. Evil. Free Men vs. Socialist Wannabe Slaves. Pray it is not your blood, my friend.”

Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) American army soldier, security guard, terrorist

Letter to Steve Hodge.
1990s

God, Peace, Soul, Evil

“BE IT KNOWN unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken. And we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true. And it is marvelous in our eyes. Nevertheless, the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen. OLIVER COWDERY DAVID WHITMER MARTIN HARRIS”

David Whitmer (1805–1888) Book of Mormon witness

Book of Mormon, 1830 Edition, p. 585 (1830)

God, People, Faith, Angels

“Have the lower animals "rights?" Undoubtedly—if men have.”

Henry Stephens Salt (1851–1939) British activist

Source: Animals' Rights, Chapter 1

Animals

“The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001 and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men, the shock troops of a hateful ideology, gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September the 11th would be the beginning of the end of America. By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could destroy this nation's resolve and force our retreat from the world. They have failed.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, Mission Accomplished (May 2003)

Hate, War, World, Imagination

“Men may be very learned, and yet very miserable; it is easy to be a deep geometrician, or a sublime astronomer, but very difficult to be a good man. I esteem, therefore, the traveller who instructs the heart, but despise him who only indulges the imagination. A man who leaves home to mend himself and others, is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is only a vagabond.”

Oliver Goldsmith book The Citizen of the World

The Citizen of the World (1760–1761), Letter VII.

Travel, Home, Imagination, Learning

“The terms for the Phocians were mild by Greek Standards (one Greek state proposed the execution of all the men) disarmament, division into village-settlements, payment of all indemnity to Apollo and expulsion from the Amphictiony. In their place the Macedonians were elected members. The two votes of Phocis on the council were transferred to the Macedonian state.”

N. G. L. Hammond (1907–2001) British classical scholar

"The Genius of Alexander the Great", p.18, Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd (November 26, 2004)

“It's impossible for men and women who love each other not to hurt each other now and then, but most women would settle happily for a man who tried not to cause the same hurt twice.”

Merle Shain (1935–1989) Canadian writer

Some Men are More Perfect Than Others (1973)

Love, Women, Hurt

“Most wise men were agreed that it were best
Not to be born, but if that may not be,
Then with the least delay to reach the goal.”

Alexis (-372–-270 BC) Athenian poet of Middle Comedy

Mandragorizomene, Fragment 1, 14.

“Bernier says that the Rajput “Rajas never mount (guard) within a (Mughal) fortress, but invariably without the walls, under their own tents… and always refusing to enter any fortress unless well attended, and by men determined to sacrifice their lives for their leaders. This self devotion has been sufficiently proved when attempts have been made to deal treacherously with a Raja.””

François Bernier (1620–1688) French physician and traveller

François Bernier, quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 4
Travels in the Mogul Empire (1656-1668)

“In the spirit of enthusiasm or vanity, the prophet [Muhammad] rests the truth of his mission on the merit of his book; audaciously challenges both men and angels to imitate the beauties of a single page; and presumes to assert that God alone could dictate this incomparable performance. This argument is most powerfully addressed to a devout Arabian, whose mind is attuned to faith and rapture; whose ear is delighted by the music of sounds; and whose ignorance is incapable of comparing the productions of human genius… If the composition of the Koran exceed the faculties of a man to what superior intelligence should we ascribe the Iliad of Homer, or the Philippics of Demosthenes?”

Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) English historian and Member of Parliament

EGPaIV" Edward Gibbon, [1788], Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gibbon/05/daf05010.htm, Vol. 5, Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants. Part IV. The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)

God, Truth, Books, Faith

“If Congress refuse to listen to and grant what women ask, there is but one course left then to pursue. Women have no government. Men have organized a government, and they maintain it to the utter exclusion of women…. [¶] Under such glaring inconsistencies, such unwarrantable tyranny, such unscrupulous despotism, what is there left [for] women to do but to become the mothers of the future government? [¶] There is one alternative left, and we have resolved on that. This convention is for the purpose of this declaration. As surely as one year passes from this day, and this right is not fully, frankly and unequivocally considered, we shall proceed to call another convention expressly to frame a new constitution and to erect a new government, complete in all its parts and to take measures to maintain it as effectually as men do theirs. [¶] We mean treason; we mean secession, and on a thousand times grander scale than was that of the south. We are plotting revolution; we will overslough this bogus republic and plant a government of righteousness in its stead, which shall not only profess to derive its power from consent of the governed, but shall do so in reality.”

Victoria Woodhull (1838–1927) American suffragist

A Lecture on Constitutional Equality, also known as The Great Secession Speech, speech to Woman's Suffrage Convention, New York, May 11, 1871, excerpt quoted in Gabriel, Mary, Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored (Chapel Hill, N.Car.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1st ed. 1998 ISBN 1-56512-132-5, pp. 86–87 & n. [13] (ellipsis or suspension points in original & "[for]" so in original) (author Mary Gabriel journalist, Reuters News Service). Also excerpted, differently, in Underhill, Lois Beachy, The Woman Who Ran for President: The Many Lives of Victoria Woodhull (Bridgehampton, N.Y.: Bridge Works, 1st ed. 1995 ISBN 1-882593-10-3, pp. 125–126 & unnumbered n.

Women, Reality, Time, Future

“Freedom can exist only in the society of knowledge. Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights.”

Benjamin Rush (1745–1813) American physician, educator, author

Education Agreeable to a Republican Form of Government http://books.google.com/books?id=iquJqc4QPDwC&pg=PA97&dq=%22Freedom+can+exist+only+in+the+society+of+knowledge.+Without+learning,+men+are+incapable+of+knowing+their+rights+%22&hl=en&ei=0SBGTM3zIZCmnQfxsb38Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Freedom%20can%20exist%20only%20in%20the%20society%20of%20knowledge.%20Without%20learning%2C%20men%20are%20incapable%20of%20knowing%20their%20rights%20%22&f=false

Knowledge, Freedom, Learning

“Fire tries gold, misfortune tries brave men.”
Ignis aurum probat, miseria fortes uiros.

Seneca the Younger Moral Essays

De Providentia (On Providence): cap. 5, line 9
Alternate translation: Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men. (translator unknown).
Moral Essays

“And yet this very singleness of vision and thorough oneness with his age is a mark of the successful man. It is as though Nature needs must make men narrow in order to give them force.”

W.E.B. Du Bois book The Souls of Black Folk

Source: The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Ch. III: Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others

Age, Nature, Success

“Kapila's arguments are listed [by Dr. Ambedkar], and the last one introduces yet another fundamental concept of Buddhism: suffering (dukkha). It is brought in from an unusual angle: 'Kapila argued that the process of development of the unevolved is through the activities of three constituents of which it is made up, Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. These are called three Gunas. [Sattva is] light in nature, which reveals, which causes pleasure to men; [Rajas is] what impels and moves, what produces activity; [Tamas is] what is heavy and puts under restraint, what produces the state of indifference or inactivity (') When the three Gunas are in perfect balance, none overpowering the other, the universe appears static (achetan) and ceases to evolve. When the three Gunas are not in balance, one overpowers the other, the universe becomes dynamic (sachetan) and evolution begins. Asked why the Gunas become unbalanced, the answer which Kapila gave was that this disturbance in the balance of the three Gunas was due to the presence of Dukkha (suffering).”

Kapila Vedic sage, of the Samkhya school of Hindu philosophy

Buddhism is quite close to the Samkhya-Yoga viewpoint: to Samkhya for its philosophical framework, to Yoga for its methods of meditation.
Quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2002). Who is a Hindu?: Hindu revivalist views of Animism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and other offshoots of Hinduism. ISBN 978-8185990743, with quote from Ambedkar: The Buddha and his Dhamma, 1:5:2.

Pleasure, Nature, Light, Suffering

“There is nothing which a prudent man must shun more carefully than living with a view to popularity and giving serious thought to the things esteemed by the multitude, instead of making sound reason his guide of life, so that, even if he must gainsay all men and fall into disrepute and incur danger for the sake of what is honourable, he will in no wise choose to swerve from what has been recognized as right.”

Basil of Caesarea (329–379) Christian Saint

Source: On Greek Literature, p. 429

Life

“The Chinese courts have tried many Japanese officers for their crimes against the Chinese. These men committed thousands of crimes against Koreans. They killed and persecuted thousands of our people for refusing to help the Japanese war effort. They forced Koreans into the coal mines as slave laborers and let them die of tuberculosis and neglect.”

Seishirō Itagaki (1885–1948) Japanese general

Quoted in "Korea would Try 2 Japanese Chiefs" from "New York Times" article - November 30, 1948.

War, People, Effort, Help

“The counterpart of such devotion to the commands of Jesus Christ is a thoroughgoing opposition to the institutions of culture. To Tolstoy these seem to be founded on a complex foundation of errors, including the acceptance of the inevitability of evil in man's present life, the belief that life is governed by external laws so that men cannot attain blessedness by their own efforts, the fear of death, the identification of true life with personal existence, and, above all, the practice of and belief in violence. Even less than Tertullian does he think that human corruption is resident in human nature; the evil with which men contend is in their culture only.”

H. Richard Niebuhr (1894–1962) American theologian

Source: Christ and Culture (1951), p. 60

Life, Death, Fear, Law

“I'm a Nolan. I could dazzle you in dialect, because the words do not make the same sense to different men.”

Morris West (1916–1999) Australian writer

The Heretic (1968)

Sense

“It is less dangerous to treat most men badly than to treat them too well.”

François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

Il n'est pas si dangereux de faire du mal à la plupart des hommes que de leur faire trop de bien.
Maxim 238.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

“Much music marreth men's manners.”

Galén (129–216) Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher

As quoted in Garnett, Vallée, Brandl, The Universal Anthology, Vol 12 (1809), p. 192.
Latter day attributions

Music

“All the virtues which appeared in Christ shone brightest in the close of His life, under the trials He then met. Eminent virtue always shows brightest in the fire. Pure gold shows its purity chiefly in the furnace. It was chiefly under those trials which Christ endured in the close of His life, that His love to God, His honor of God's majesty, His regard to the honor of His law, His spirit of obedience, His humility, contempt of the world, His patience, meekness, and spirit of forgiveness towards men, appeared. Indeed, every thing that Christ did to work out redemption for us appears mainly in the close of His life. Here mainly is His satisfaction for sin, and here chiefly is His merit of eternal life for sinners, and here chiefly appears the brightness of His example which He has set us for imitation.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 67.

Love, Life, God, World

“The true purpose of education is to prepare young men and women for effective citizenship in a free form of government.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Speech at Williamsburg College http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/education/bsa/citizenship_merit_badge/eisenhower_citizenship_quotations.pdf (15 May 1953) 1950s

Women, Education

“The charge of "sentimentalism" is frequently brought against those who plead for animals' rights. Now "sentimentalism," if any meaning at all can be attached to the word, must signify an inequality, an ill balance of sentiment, an inconsistency which leads men into attacking one abuse, while they ignore or condone another where a reform is equally desirable. That this weakness is often observable among "philanthropists" on the one hand, and "friends of animals" on the other, and most of all among those acute "men of the world," whose regard is only for themselves, I am not concerned to deny; what I wish to point out is, that the only real safeguard against sentimentality is to take up a consistent position towards the rights of men and of the lower animals alike, and to cultivate a broad sense of universal justice (not "mercy") for all living things. Herein, and herein alone, is to be sought the true sanity of temperament.”

Henry Stephens Salt (1851–1939) British activist

Source: Animals' Rights, Chapter 1

World, Justice, Sense, Universe

“Mary weeps because men teach she was really sinless.”

Jack T. Chick (1924–2016) Christian comics writer

Chick tracts, " Why Is Mary Crying? http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0040/0040_01.asp" (1987)

“I speak of God, I mean something other than an Identity wherein all differences vanish, or a Unity which includes but does not transcend the differences which it somehow holds in solution. I mean a God whom men can love, a God to whom men can pray, who takes sides, who has purposes and preferences, whose attributes, howsoever conceived, leave unimpaired the possibility of a personal relation between Himself and those whom He has created.”

Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930) British Conservative politician and statesman

Theism and humanism

Love, God, Personality

“I have studied at Barcelona, at Salamanca, at Alcala, at Paris; what have I learned? The language of doubt; but in me there was no harbor for doubt. Jesus came, and my trust in God has grown by the doubts of men.”

Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) Catholic Saint, founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits)

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 599.

God, Study, Learning

“I don’t know what my image is. I went to France to publicize Marvin’s Room, and one really smart young woman journalist said to me “You know, what I told people I was going to interview Meryl Streep, they were so excited…all ze woman in my office, they love you so much. But ze men - they are afraid of you.”

Meryl Streep (1949) American actress

Source: Liz Smith (1998). "The Meryl Streep Nobody Knows." Good Housekeeping, 227(3), September 1998, pp. 94-98; Cited in: Karen Hollinger The Actress: Hollywood Acting and the Female Star http://books.google.co.in/books?id=89W0QMDjA7gC&pg=PA71&dq=Meryl+Streep&hl=en#v=onepage&q=Meryl%20Streep&f=false, Taylor & Francis, 2006, p. 71

Love, People

“They're mostly foreigners, Mr. Merrick, who haven't yet fully mastered the English language. But," he added, thoughtfully, "a few among them might subscribe, if your country sheet contains any news of interest at all. This is rather a lonely place for my men and they get dissatisfied at times. All workmen seem chronically dissatisfied, and their women constantly urge them to rebellion. Already there are grumblings, and they claim they're buried alive in this forlorn forest. Don't appreciate the advantages of country life, you see, and I've an idea they'll begin to desert, pretty soon. Really, a live newspaper might do them good — especially if you print a little socialistic drivel now and then.”

L. Frank Baum book Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation

Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation (1912)
Novels published under the pseudonym Edith van Dyne

Life, Women, Idea, Time

“Shakespeare's relations with men and women of the court involved him at the outset in emotional conflicts, which form the subject-matter of his 'Sonnets”

Sidney Lee (1859–1926) English biographer and critic

Dictionary of National Biography, art. "William Shakespeare"

Women

“Science brings men nearer to God.”

Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) French chemist and microbiologist

As quoted in Letter to an Atheist (2007) by Michael Patrick Leahy, p. 61
Original: Le premier regard de l'homme jeté sur l'univers n'y découvre que variété, diversité, multiplicité des phénomènes. Que ce regard soit illuminé par la science, — par la science qui rapproche l'homme de Dieu, — et la simplicité et l'unité brillent de toutes parts.

God, Science

“There are two kinds of animals on earth. One kind minds his own business, the other minds other people's business. The former are vegetarians, like cows, sheep and thinking men. The latter are carnivorous, like hawks, tigers and men of action.”

Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese writer

As quoted by Tai-yi Lin (Lin Yutang's daughter) in her Foreword (26 March 1950) to The Importance of Living, p. x

People, Business, Thinking, Animals

“In America, conscription is unknown; men are enlisted for payment. Compulsory recruitment is so alien to the ideas and so foreign to the customs of the people of the United States that I doubt whether they would ever dare to introduce it into their law.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Source: Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter X-XIV, Chapter XIII.

People, Law, Idea

“In contrast to earlier gay law reform and equality-oriented movements, the 1970s LGBT liberation movement did not seek to ape heterosexual values or secure the acceptance of sexual orientation and gender identity minorities within the existing sexual conventions. Indeed, it repudiated the prevailing sexual morality and institutions - rejecting not only heterosexism (heterosexual supremacism) but also male machismo, with its oppressive predisposition to rivalry, toughness and aggression; the extreme expressions of which are the rapist, queer-basher, racist murderer and war criminal.
The "radical drag" and "gender-bender" politics of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in the early 1970s glorified and promoted male gentleness. A conscious, if sometimes exaggerated, attempt to renounce the oppressiveness of masculinity and male privilege, it rejected straight macho values; identifying them with the subordination of women and LGBT people. The GLF was truly revolutionary because it attempted to subvert male-female gender roles and straight patriarchy. It denounced the ethos of masculine competitiveness, domination and violence; instead affirming the worthwhileness of male sensitivity and affection between men and, in the case of lesbians, the intrinsic value of an eroticism and love independent of maleness.
These ideas led me to propose that without the construction of a cult of machismo and a mass of aggressive male egos, neither sexual, gender, class, racial, speciesist nor imperialist oppression are possible.”

Peter Tatchell (1952) British gay rights activist

Machismo Underpins War and Tranny http://www.petertatchell.net/masculinity/machismo-underpins-war-and-tyranny.htm, Official Website

Love, Women, War, People

“With the arrogance of youth, I determined to do no less than to transform the world with Beauty. If I have succeeded in some small way, if only in one small corner of the world, amongst the men and women I love, then I shall count myself blessed, and blessed, and blessed, and the work goes on.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

As quoted in William Morris & Red House (2005) by Jan Marsh, p. 65.

Love, Women, Youth, World

“Men don't come to see other women to help take out the garbage and if they wanted to put up the screens they would have stayed home. So mistresses tend to get a steady diet of whipped cream, but no meat and potatoes, and wives often get the reverse, when both would like a bit of each.”

Merle Shain (1935–1989) Canadian writer

Some Men are More Perfect Than Others (1973)

Women, Home, Help

“At no time during my reign were there more than 3,164 so-called political prisoners, most of whom were terrorists. Since February, it is certain that tens of thousands of men and women have been arrested and imprisoned under frequently inhumane conditions.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

Page 198-199
Publications, The Shah's Story (1980), On Islam and the Islamic Revolution

Women, Time

“But though empires, like all the other works of men, have all hitherto proved mortal, yet every empire aims at immortality.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter II, Part II, p. 896.

“The dons are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Oxford and Cambridge
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy

Education, Business

“Men rush to California and Australia as if the true gold were to be found in that direction; but that is to go to the very opposite extreme to where it lies. They go prospecting farther and farther away from the true lead, and are most unfortunate when they think themselves most successful.”

Henry David Thoreau book Life Without Principle

Life Without Principle (1863)

Thinking, Success

“The price of labor in the high-tech labor market is a function of a political, artificially created, ceaseless supply of immigrants. Prattle about the price at which American workers will do certain work is meaningless without a reference to borders and to the thing they bound—communities. Render asunder the quaint idea of borders—and the world is your labor market; communities be damned. Realize that this ceaseless supply of labor is maintained not through peaceful market forces, but through the use of political power, wielded by wealthy men and women with access. At work here is their Brave New Borderless World, not the invisible hand we love.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“ Why Tax Breaks Won’t Stop High-Tech, H-1B Human Trafficking https://constitution.com/tax-breaks-wont-stop-high-tech-h-1b-human-trafficking/,” Constitution.com, November 16, 2017.” 2010s, 2017

Love, Women, World, Peace

“The second proposition admits and encourages the very practice we censure so justly, for which the saint [ Augustine of Hippo ] was so famous, and by which he contributed so much to promote contentions in his own days, and to perpetuate them to ours. The practice of deducing doctrines from the scriptures that are not evidently contained in them… Who does not see that the direct tendency of this practice is exactly the same as the event has proved it to be? It composes and propagates a religion, seemingly under the authority of God, but really under that of man. The principles of revelation are lost in theology, or disfigured by it: and whilst some men are impudent enough to pretend, others are silly enough to believe, that they adhere to the gospel, and maintain the cause of God against infidels and heretics, when they do nothing better, nor more, than espouse the conceits of men, whom enthusiasm, or the ambition of forming sects, or of making a great figure in them, has inspired. If you ask now what the practice of the christian fathers, and of other divines, should have been, in order to preserve the purity of faith, and to promote peace and charity, the answer is obvious… They should have adhered to the word of God: they should have paid no regard to heathen philosophy, jewish cabala, the sallies of enthusiasm, or the refinements of human ingenuity: they should have embraced, and held fast the articles of faith and doctrine, that were delivered in plain terms, or in unequivocal figures: they should not have been dogmatical where the sense was doubtful, nor have presumed even to guess where the Holy Ghost left the veil of mystery undrawn.”

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751) English politician and Viscount

Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophical Works http://books.google.com/books?id=E6ATAAAAQAAJ (1754) Vol.III, Essay IV, Sect XVI

God, Peace, Faith, Religion

“2858. By Trifles and unheeded common Things of Life, thou may'st discover Mens Qualities, Tempers, and Inclinations, better than by their greater Actions : Because in Matters of Importance they strain themselves, but in lesser Things they heedlessly follow the Current of their own Natures.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727)

Life, Nature

“Rhetoric in its truest sense seeks to perfect men by showing them better versions of themselves, links in that chain extending up toward the ideal.”

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

“The Phaedrus and the Nature of Rhetoric,” p. 25.
The Ethics of Rhetoric (1953)

Sense, Perfection

“…the concentration of human beings in towns…is contrary to nature, and…this abnormal existence is bound to issue in suffering, deterioration, and gradual destruction to the mass of the population…countless thousands of our fellow-men, and still a larger number of children…are starved of air and space and sunshine. …This view of city life, which is gradually coming home to the heart and understanding and the conscience of our people, is so terrible that it cannot be put away. What is all our wealth and learning and the fine flower of our civilisation and our Constitution and our political theories – what are all these but dust and ashes, if the men and women, on whose labour the whole social fabric is maintained, are doomed to live and die in darkness and misery in the recesses of our great cities? We may undertake expeditions on behalf of oppressed tribes and races, we may conduct foreign missions, we may sympathise with the cause of unfortunate nationalities; but it is our own people, surely, who have the first claim upon us…the air must be purified…the sunshine must be allowed to stream in, the water and the food must be kept pure and unadulterated, the streets light and clean…the measure of your success in bringing these things to pass will be the measure of the arresting of the terrible powers of race degeneration which is going on in the countless sunless streets.”

Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Belmont (25 January 1907), quoted in John Wilson, C.B.: A Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (London: Constable, 1973), p. 588
Prime Minister

Life, Women, Children, People

“For decades, Saddam Hussein has tortured, imprisoned, raped and murdered the Iraqi people; invaded neighboring countries without provocation; and threatened the world with weapons of mass destruction. The time has come to end his reign of terror. On your young shoulders rest the hopes of mankind. When I give you the word, together we will cross the Line of Departure, close with those forces that choose to fight, and destroy them. Our fight is not with the Iraqi people, nor is it with members of the Iraqi army who choose to surrender. While we will move swiftly and aggressively against those who resist, we will treat all others with decency, demonstrating chivalry and soldierly compassion for people who have endured a lifetime under Saddam’s oppression. Chemical attack, treachery, and use of the innocent as human shields can be expected, as can other unethical tactics. Take it all in stride. Be the hunter, not the hunted: never allow your unit to be caught with its guard down. Use good judgment and act in best interests of our Nation. You are part of the world’s most feared and trusted force. Engage your brain before you engage your weapon. Share your courage with each other as we enter the uncertain terrain north of the Line of Departure. Keep faith in your comrades on your left and right and Marine Air overhead. Fight with a happy heart and strong spirit. For the mission’s sake, our country’s sake, and the sake of the men who carried the Division’s colors in the past battles-who fought for life and never lost their nerve-carry out your mission and keep your honor clean.”

James Mattis (1950) 26th and current United States Secretary of Defense; United States Marine Corps general

Demonstrate to the world there is "No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy" than a U.S. Marine.
Mattis' words in a message to the 1st Marine Division in March 2003, on the eve of the Iraq War, as quoted in "Eve of Battle Speech" in The Weekly Standard (1 March 2003); also quoted in War Stories: Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003) by Oliver North, p. 53

Life, People, World, Fear

“Here I was, sitting with the boys of the first team in cognitive psychology, personality psychology, developmental psychology [at Stanford and Harvard], and in the midst of this I felt here were men and women who, themselves were not highly evolved beings. Their own lives were not fulfilled.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Be Here Now (1971)

Women, Boy, Personality

“I remember Nessim once saying [-] that Alexandria was the great winepress of love; those who emerged from it were the sick men, the solitaries, the prophets-I mean all who have been deeply wounded in their sex.”

Lawrence Durrell The Alexandria Quartet

The Alexandria Quartet (1957–1960), Justine (1957)

Love, Sex

“Your heart was loaded with its fate like lead
Pressing against the net of flesh: and those
Countries that crept back across the boundaries
Where you had forced open the arena
Of limelit France with your star at the centre,
Closed in on you, terrified no longer
At the diamond in your head
Which cut their lands and killed their men.”

Stephen Spender (1909–1995) English poet and man of letters

"Napoleon In 1814"
The Still Centre (1939)

Fate, Star, Heart, Country

“The Stolen and Perverted Writings of Homer & Ovid, of Plato & Cicero, which all men ought to contemn, are set up by artifice against the Sublime of the Bible”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Preface
1800s, Milton (c. 1809)

“I have told the story of a progressive, educated, Hindu family of this country in Lajja. The family falls victim to communal violence, where a rationalist and atheist young man gradually transforms into a staunch Hindu, becomes a fundamentalist and gets destroyed in the process. The state destroys him, the government destroys him and gradually mushrooming religious fanaticism destroys him. He is defeated. Many young men in this country are transforming from human beings to Hindus. They are being repeatedly victimized by the state, in educational institutions, workplaces, business and trade, all because of religious discrimination. They are being labelled second-class citizens. Why should I not speak the truth? The truth will always be valued. The ones who make a truth controversial, the fault lies with them and not with the truth. And the ones who blame the truth support the actions of the miscreants. The Hindus getting into trouble here is a bad excuse. Those who like to stay silent for the sake of convenience are responsible for eroding human strength and courage. They are cowards and exploiters. They are the biggest threats to all minority communities. They believe if you point out a wrong it will lead to trouble. The same argument works for the Muslims there.”

Taslima Nasrin (1962) Poet, columnist, novelist

Nāsarina, T., & Chakraborty, M. (2018). Split: A life.

Truth, Education, Family, Communication

“For centuries, 'scientists' have tried to present the dinosaurs as violent monsters because they wanted to scare children. It's no coincidence that most of these men have been atheists or even homosexuals who are possessed by an intense hatred of young boys and girls.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

parody of Dinosaurs of Eden: Tracing the Mystery Through History in Stephenson Billings, " Why Are Liberals Stealing Our Children's Dinosaur Lemonade? http://web.archive.org/web/20120820195648/http://dailybleach.com/why-are-liberals-stealing-our-childrens-dinosaur-lemonade/", Daily Bleach (August 8, 2012) actual page text: "At this stage you may have two questions: Why did animals like T. rex have fierce-looking sharp teeth if they were vegetarians? And why is the world today one in which there is death, disease, suffering and bloodshed everywhere?" Misattributed

Children, Girl, Boy

“The fate of a single man can be rich with significance, that of a few hundred less so, but the history of thousands and millions of men does not mean anything at all, in any adequate sense of the word.”

Stanisław Lem book Solaris

Source: Solaris (1961), Ch. 8 "The Monsters", p. 120

Fate, History, Sense

“Man's role is uncertain, undefined, and perhaps unnecessary. By a great effort man has hit upon a method of compensating himself for his basic inferiority. Equipped with various mysterious noise-making instruments, whose potency rests upon their actual form's being unknown to those who hear the sounds — that is, the women and children must never know that they are really bamboo flutes, or hollow logs, or bits of elliptic wood whirled on strings — they can get the male children away from the women, brand them as incomplete, and themselves turn boys into men. Women, it is true, make human beings, but only men can make men.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1940s, Male and Female (1949), p. 84 as cited in: John Whiting, Eleanor Hollenberg Chasdi, Roy D'Andrade (2006) Culture and Human Development: The Selected Papers of John Whiting. p. 240

Women, Children, Boy, Effort

“Please realize that the first duty of newspaper men is the get the news and PRINT THE NEWS.”

William Randolph Hearst (1863–1951) American newspaper publisher

Quoted in Editor & Publisher (August 12, 1944)

“Thwarted, or starved, in the important objects proper to young capacities, the boys and young men naturally find or invent deviant objects for themselves. … Their choices and inventions are rarely charming, usually stupid, and often disastrous; we cannot expect average kids to deviate with genius. But on the other hand, the young men who conform to the dominant society become for the most part apathetic, disappointed, cynical and wasted.”

Paul Goodman book Growing Up Absurd

Source: Growing Up Absurd (1956), p. 13.

Stupidity, Disappointment, Boy, Nature

“Notice that much of what men do is also done by single mothers so appreciating what men do also helps us appreciate what single moms do.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

Moms, Help

“We need never look for universal peace on this earth until men stop killing animals for food.”

Charles Fillmore (1854–1948) American mystic

Source: The Vegetarian, Unity Magazine, May 1920. Quoted in Will Tuttle, The World Peace Diet (2005), ch. 3.

Peace, Food, Universe, Animals

“Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the 'criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal…[W]e are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, [but] it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings, and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

1992, quoted in [1978-1996: Texas Representative Ron Paul’s Newsletters Contain a Host of Bigoted Claims and Observations, History Commons, http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a7896paulnewsletter#a7896paulnewsletter]
Disputed, Newsletters, Ron Paul Political Report

Justice, Thinking, Evil

“I have not come to seek place, nor to interfere with the business and calling of those men who have borne the burden since the death of Joseph. I throw myself at your feet, and wish to be one of your number, and be a mere member of the Church, and my mere asking to be baptized is an end to all pretensions to authority.”

Oliver Cowdery (1806–1850) American Mormon leader

Cowdery's statement upon requesting rebaptism in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Report to Presidents Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Willard Richards and the Authorities of the Church, (April 5, 1849).

Death, Business

“Most male gorillas either have a harem or do not have a mate; in contrast, most men who have more than zero mates have only one. This means that, whereas only harem-holding male gorillas contribute to the gene pool of the next generation, most human males who contribute to the gene pool do so in the context of a pair bond. Consequently, our evolved sexual nature has been shaped more by pair bonding than by harem polygyny.”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

Source: The Ape that Thought It Was a Peacock: Does Evolutionary Psychology Exaggerate Human Sex Differences? (2013), p. 150

Nature

“That's wild! I'll start off with five stars and work backwards from there. Now there, to me, is the most perfect band in existence, whether you're thinking of it orchestrationally or in terms of Duke's immensely creative writing. I can't think of anybody I admire more than this man; nobody could even be compared with him, except Billy Strayhorn. Duke does something with this old, tired instrumentation of trumpets, trombones and saxophones, and he has a perfect way of utilizing the men's specific sounds. Anything he plays is a work of art. The band is out of tune, for instance, and it doesn't even matter. They almost have their own brand of intonation. Duke can take an exotic-sounding idea and create something – you might call it sophisticated crudity. It gives both the qualities that I look for – an earthy quality and the sophisticated quality.”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

Reviewing " Agra https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6MDDbrAqqg" from Far East Suite, as quoted in "Clare Fischer: Blindfold Test" http://www.mediafire.com/view/fix6ane8h54gx/Clare_Fischer#2nmgk677qzm4cnu

Art, Way, Star, Idea

“But even this apparently unfounded hatred is not yet the most characteristic achievement of ressentiment. Even here, it is still directed against particular persons or (as in class hatred) particular groups. Its effect is much more profound when it goes beyond such determinate hostilities—when it does not lead to a falsification of the world view, but perverts the sense of values itself. What Nietzsche calls “falsification of the tablets of value” is built on this foundation. In this new phase, the man of ressentiment no longer turns away from the positive values, nor does he wish to destroy the men and things endowed with them. Now the values themselves are inverted: those values which are positive to any normal feeling become negative. The man of ressentiment cannot justify or even understand his own existence and sense of life in terms of positive values such as power, health, beauty, freedom, and independence. Weakness, fear, anxiety, and a slavish disposition prevent him from obtaining them. Therefore he comes to feel that “all this is vain anyway” and that salvation lies in the opposite phenomena: poverty, suffering, illness, and death.”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Life, Death, Hostility, Health

“Young men can be impetuous, young men can be rush, young men can be fools, but the Car'a'carn cannot let himself be a young man.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Nandera to Rand al'Thor
(15 October 1994)

Fools

“I am aware that this last statement may be disputed and individual testimony perhaps adduced to show that in ante-bellum days the ballot was as untrammelled in the south as in any section of the country; but in the face of any such contradiction I reassert the statement. The shot-gun was not resorted to. Masked men did not ride over the country at night intimidating voters; but there was a firm feeling that a class existed in every State with a sort of divine right to control public affairs. If they could not get this control by one means they must by another. The end justified the means. The coercion, if mild, was complete.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

Source: 1880s, Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885), Ch. 16.

Feeling, Night, Country

“Among the basic freedoms to which men aspire that their lives might be full and uncramped, freedom from fear stands out as both a means and an end. A people who would build a nation in which strong, democratic institutions are firmly established as a guarantee against state-induced power must first learn to liberate their own minds from apathy and fear.”

Aung San Suu Kyi book Freedom from Fear

Freedom from Fear (1991)

People, Fear, Freedom, Strong

“At this moment in history, millions of 'working dads' are desiring to do what they do not feel they have the right to do: be more devoted as a dad, less devoted as a worker. This feeling is far more ubiquitous among men executives than women executives in many areas of the world because, for instance, Asia-Pacific women executives today are more than six times as likely to not have children than men executives are. The Asia-Pacific executive man is about six times as likely to be a working dad as an executive woman is to be a working mom.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 113.

Women, Children, World, Feeling

“I am disappointed in him. He was an able and clean man. I supported him initially. After 1984, Sikhs did not want to vote for Congress. I put forward his name. He came to thank me. But when he was the Home Minister, and he came with his bodyguards in tow, during an event, I took the liberty to say, "You sowed the seed of communalism in the country and the country will pay for it."”

Khushwant Singh (1915–2014) Indian novelist and journalist

Advani doesn't womanize; such men are dangerous.
On L.K.Advani.
Khushwant Singh in Sikh Philosophy Network

Disappointment, Home, Communication, Support

“Almost all men, and those that seem to be very miserable, love life, because they cannot bear to lose sight of such a beautiful and lovely world. The ideas, that every moment whilst we live have a beauty that we take not distinct notice of, brings a pleasure that, when we come to the trial, we had rather live in much pain and misery than lose.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

"The Beauty of the World" (c.1725), from the notebook The Images of Divine Things, The Shadows of Divine Things, The Language and Lessons of Nature (published 1948).

Love, Life, Pain, Pleasure

“Paul Morphy was the greatest chess player that ever lived. Every student of the game, who has delved into the stories of the past, realizes that no one ever was so far superior to the players of his time, or ever defeated his opponents with such ease, and no one ever offered knight odds to the men who considered themselves his equal.”

Paul Morphy (1837–1884) American chess player

As quoted in Lasker's Chess Magazine
About

Game, Time, Past

“Fantasizing about action out there in the 'real' world, spinning dreams abut the secret centrality, about the occult importance of the labours in which he has interred his existence — labours that the vast majority of his fellow men would deem wholly marginal and socially wasteful if they knew of them at all — the pure scholar, the master of catalogues, can sup on hatred. At the ordinary level, he will exorcize his spleen in the ad-hominem nastiness of a book review, in the arsenic of a footnote. He will vent his resentments in the soft betrayals of an ambiguous recommendation or examination report and in the scorpion's round of a committee on tenure. The violence stays formal. Not, one supposes, in Professor Blunt.”

George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer

"The Cleric of Treason"
George Steiner: A Reader (1984)

Secret, Books, World, Dreams

“They sat for a moment, regarding one another; neither understanding. As if we were two aliens, thought Blaine. With viewpoints that did not come within a million miles of coinciding, and yet they both were men.”

Clifford D. Simak book Time is the Simplest Thing

Source: Time is the Simplest Thing (1961), Chapter 9 (p. 70)

Understanding

“Sher Shah Sur’s name is associated in our textbooks with the Grand Trunk Road from Peshawar to Dacca, with caravanserais, and several other schemes of public welfare. It is true that he was not a habitual persecutor of Hindus before he became the emperor at Delhi. But he did not betray Islam when he became the supreme ruler. The test came at Raisen in 1543 AD. Shaykh Nurul Haq records in Zubdat-ul-Tawarikh as follows: “In the year 950 H., Puranmal held occupation of the fort of Raisen… He had 1000 women in his harem… and amongst them several Musulmanis whom he made to dance before him. Sher Khan with Musulman indignation resolved to conquer the fort. After he had been some time engaged in investing it, an accommodation was proposed and it was finally agreed that Puranmal with his family and children and 4000 Rajputs of note should be allowed to leave the fort unmolested. Several men learned in the law (of Islam) gave it as their opinion that they should all be slain, notwithstanding the solemn engagement which had been entered into. Consequently, the whole army, with the elephants, surrounded Puranmal’s encampment. The Rajputs fought with desperate bravery and after killing their women and children and burning them, they rushed to battle and were annihilated to a man.””

Sher Shah Suri (1486–1545) founder of Sur Empire in Northern India

Zubdat-ul-Tawarikh quoted in Goel, Sita Ram (2001). The story of Islamic imperialism in India. Chapter 7 ISBN 9788185990231

Women, Children, Family, Law

“There is a strange charm in the thoughts of a good legacy, or the hopes of an estate, which wondrously alleviates the sorrow that men would otherwise feel for the death of friends.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book IV, Ch. 74.

Death, Hope, Feeling

“There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.”

Robert W. Service (1874–1958) Canadian poet

The Shooting of Dan McGrew http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/service_r_w/dan_mcgrew.html (1907), The Cremation of Sam McGee http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/2640/?letter=C&spage=26

Secret, Light, Sun, Night

“From early childhood his moral principles had struggled blindly with his interests, but he was certain of one law that ruled all others — masses of men invariably follow interests in deciding morals. Morality is a private and costly luxury.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Law, Childhood

Quotes about men page 44

Quotes about men
page 44