Quotes about men
page 48

Thomas Brooks photo
Ronald David Laing photo

“The best men are but men, and are sometimes transported with passion.”

Robert Atkyns (judge) (1621–1710) Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer and Speaker of the House of Lords

11 How. St. Tr. 1206.
Trial of Sir Edward Hales (1686)

Frederick Douglass photo

“But are there not reasons against all this? Is there not such a law or principle as that of self-preservation? Does not every race owe something to itself? Should it not attend to the dictates of common sense? Should not a superior race protect itself from contact with inferior ones? Are not the white people the owners of this continent? Have they not the right to say what kind of people shall be allowed to come here and settle? Is there not such a thing as being more generous than wise? In the effort to promote civilization may we not corrupt and destroy what we have? Is it best to take on board more passengers than the ship will carry? To all this and more I have one among many answers, altogether satisfactory to me, though I cannot promise it will be entirely so to you. I submit that this question of Chinese immigration should be settled upon higher principles than those of a cold and selfish expediency. There are such things in the world as human rights. They rest upon no conventional foundation, but are eternal, universal and indestructible. Among these is the right of locomotion; the right of migration; the right which belongs to no particular race, but belongs alike to all and to all alike. It is the right you assert by staying here, and your fathers asserted by coming here. It is this great right that I assert for the Chinese and the Japanese, and for all other varieties of men equally with yourselves, now and forever. I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity, and when there is a supposed conflict between human and national rights, it is safe to go the side of humanity. I have great respect for the blue-eyed and light-haired races of America. They are a mighty people. In any struggle for the good things of this world, they need have no fear, they have no need to doubt that they will get their full share. But I reject the arrogant and scornful theory by which they would limit migratory rights, or any other essential human rights, to themselves, and which would make them the owners of this great continent to the exclusion of all other races of men. I want a home here not only for the negro, the mulatto and the Latin races, but I want the Asiatic to find a home here in the United States, and feel at home here, both for his sake and for ours.”

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

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

Ryan North photo

“I collect power supplies like other men collect meaningful relationships! THAT IS TO SAY, AT THE RATE OF ABOUT ONE A YEAR”

Ryan North (1980) Canadian webcomic writer and programmer

Comment on LiveJournal http://www.livejournal.com/users/qwantz/24526.html

E. W. Hobson photo
W.E.B. Du Bois photo
Will Eisner photo
John Lancaster Spalding photo
Hermann Rauschning photo
Randy Pausch photo
Niccolo Machiavelli photo
Aron Ra photo
Murasaki Shikibu photo
Fritjof Capra photo
Lucian Truscott photo
George Washington Plunkitt photo
Paramahansa Yogananda photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
Owen Lovejoy photo
Warren Farrell photo
Paul Tillich photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
Robert E. Lee photo

“Governor, if I had foreseen the use those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; no sir, not by me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in my right hand.”

Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) Confederate general in the Civil War

Supposedly made to Governor Fletcher S. Stockdale (September 1870), as quoted in The Life and Letters of Robert Lewis Dabney, pp. 497-500; however, most major researchers including Douglas Southall Freeman, Shelby Dade Foote, Jr., and Bruce Catton consider the quote a myth and refuse to recognize it. “T. C. Johnson: Life and Letters of Robert Lewis Dabney, 498 ff. Doctor Dabney was not present and received his account of the meeting from Governor Stockdale. The latter told Dabney that he was the last to leave the room, and that as he was saying good-bye, Lee closed the door, thanked him for what he had said and added: "Governor, if I had foreseen the use these people desired to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox, no, sir, not by me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in this right hand." This, of course, is second-hand testimony. There is nothing in Lee's own writings and nothing in direct quotation by first-hand witness that accords with such an expression on his part. The nearest approach to it is the claim by H. Gerald Smythe that "Major Talcott" — presumably Colonel T. M. R. Talcott — told him Lee stated he would never have surrendered the army if he had known how the South would have been treated. Mr. Smythe stated that Colonel Talcott replied, "Well, General, you have only to blow the bugle," whereupon Lee is alleged to have answered, "It is too late now" (29 Confederate Veteran, 7). Here again the evidence is not direct. The writer of this biography, talking often with Colonel Talcott, never heard him narrate this incident or suggest in any way that Lee accepted the results of the radical policy otherwise than with indignation, yet in the belief that the extremists would not always remain in office”.
Misattributed

Aldous Huxley photo
Bram van Velde photo
John Bartholomew Gough photo
Chris Rock photo

“Men lie the most, women tell the biggest lies … a man's lie is, "I'm at Tony house, I'm at Kenny house!" A woman lie is like, "It's your baby!"”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director

Bigger and Blacker (HBO, 1999)

Gregory of Nyssa photo

“For the majority, I take it, who live all their lives with such obtuse faculties of thinking, it is a difficult thing to perform this feat of mental analysis and of discriminating the material vehicle from the immanent beauty, … Owing to this men give up all search after the true Beauty. Some slide into mere sensuality. Others incline in their desires to dead metallic coin. Others limit their imagination of the beautiful to worldly honours, fame, and power. There is another class which is enthusiastic about art and science. The most debased make their gluttony the test of what is good. But he who turns from all grosser thoughts and all passionate longings after what is seeming, and explores the nature of the beauty which is simple, immaterial, formless, would never make a mistake like that when he has to choose between all the objects of desire; he would never be so misled by these attractions as not to see the transient character of their pleasures and not to win his way to an utter contempt for every one of them. This, then, is the path to lead us to the discovery of the Beautiful. All other objects that attract men's love, be they never so fashionable, be they prized never so much and embraced never so eagerly, must be left below us, as too low, too fleeting, to employ the powers of loving which we possess; not indeed that those powers are to be locked up within us unused and motionless; but only that they must first be cleansed from all lower longings; then we must lift them to that height to which sense can never reach.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

On Virginity, Chapter 11

Sri Aurobindo photo
Ayn Rand photo
Warren Farrell photo
Chinua Achebe photo
John Robert Seeley photo
Francis Bacon photo
Henry Ward Beecher photo

“Success is full of promise till men get it; and then it is last year's nest from which the bird has flown.”

Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) American clergyman and activist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 567

Roy A. Childs, Jr. photo

“Hasan Nizami writes that after the suppression of a Hindu revolt at Kol (Aligarh) in 1193 AD, Aibak raised “three bastions as high as heaven with their heads, and their carcases became food for beasts of prey. The tract was freed from idols and idol-worship and the foundations of infidelism were destroyed.” In 1194 AD Aibak destroyed 27 Hindu temples at Delhi and built the Quwwat-ul-Islãm mosque with their debris. According to Nizami, Aibak “adorned it with the stones and gold obtained from the temples which had been demolished by elephants”. In 1195 AD the Mher tribe of Ajmer rose in revolt, and the Chaulukyas of Gujarat came to their assistance. Aibak had to invite re-inforcements from Ghazni before he could meet the challenge. In 1196 AD he advanced against Anahilwar Patan, the capital of Gujarat. Nizami writes that after Raja Karan was defeated and forced to flee, “fifty thousand infidels were despatched to hell by the sword” and “more than twenty thousand slaves, and cattle beyond all calculation fell into the hands of the victors”. The city was sacked, its temples demolished, and its palaces plundered. On his return to Ajmer, Aibak destroyed the Sanskrit College of Visaladeva, and laid the foundations of a mosque which came to be known as ADhãî Din kã JhoMpaDã. Conquest of Kalinjar in 1202 AD was Aibak’s crowning achievement. Nizami concludes: “The temples were converted into mosques… Fifty thousand men came under the collar of slavery and the plain became black as pitch with Hindus.””

Hasan Nizami Persian language poet and historian

Hasan Nizami, quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (2001). The story of Islamic imperialism in India. ISBN 9788185990231 Ch. 6

Edward R. Murrow photo
Ben Croshaw photo
Laura Bush photo

“AIDS respects no national boundaries; spares no race or religion; devastates men and women, rich and poor.
No country can ignore this crisis. Fighting AIDS is an urgent calling — because every life, in every land, has value and dignity.”

Laura Bush (1946) First Lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009

Remarks at United Nations General Assembly High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS (June 2, 2006) http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060602-2.html

Simon Munnery photo

“It is the vanity of women to spend hours in front of the mirror. It is the vanity of men not to bother.”

Simon Munnery (1967) British comedian

Attention Scum! (2001), How To Live (2005)

Camille Paglia photo

“Men who shrink from penetration of the female body are paralyzed by justifiable apprehension, since they are returning to our uncanny site of origin.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 79

W.E.B. Du Bois photo
Stephen A. Douglas photo
Plutarch photo

“Cato said, "I had rather men should ask why my statue is not set up, than why it is."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Political Precepts
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Jean Paul photo
Upton Sinclair photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
Wilhelm II, German Emperor photo

“I repudiate these attacks on him…a German of the Germans…his honour so assailed. Who made this infamous attack upon our friend? Men who till now have been looked upon as Germans, but who henceforth are unworthy of that name. And these men come from the Reich's working classes, who owe so infinite a debt of gratitude to Krupp!”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

Speech at the funeral of Friedrich Alfred Krupp (27 November 1902), quoted in William Manchester, The Arms of Krupp 1587-1968 (London: Michael Joseph, 1968), p. 275
1900s

Thomas Brooks photo
Michelle Obama photo
Max Eastman photo
James A. Garfield photo
Thomas Gray photo

“Ah, tell them they are men!”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

St. 6
Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=odec (written 1742–1750)

Juan Luis Vives photo

“All these books were written by idle, unoccupied, ignorant men, the slaves of vice and filth. I wonder what it is that delights us in these books unless it be that we are attracted by indecency. Learning is not to be expected from authors who never saw even a shadow of learning. As for their story-telling, what pleasure is to be derived from the things they invent, full of lies and stupidity?”
Quos omnes libros conscripserunt homines otiosi, male feriati, imperiti, vitiis ac spurcitiae dediti, in queis miror quid delectet nisi tam nobis flagitia blandirentur. Eruditio non est exspectanda ab hominibus qui ne umbram quidem eruditionis viderant. Iam cum narrant, quae potest esse delectatio in rebus quas tam aperte et stulte confingunt?

Juan Luis Vives (1492–1540) Spanish philosopher

De Institutione Feminae Christianae (1523), trans. by C. Fantazzi (1996), Vol. I, p. 47.

Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“I am so proud of our system of government, of our free enterprise, where our incentive system and our men who head our big industries are willing to get up at daylight and work until midnight to offer employment and create new jobs for people, where our men working there will try to get decent wages but will sit across the table and not act like cannibals, but will negotiate and reason things out together.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

"Transcript of Television and Radio Interview Conducted by Representatives of Major Broadcast Services.," http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=26108 March 15, 1964. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.
1960s

Angela Davis photo
Gary S. Becker photo
Alexander Hamilton photo

“As long as offices are open to all men and no constitutional rank is established, it is pure republicanism.”

Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) Founding Father of the United States

Remarks in the Federal Convention, as quoted in Works, Vol. II, pp. 416-417. https://books.google.com/books?id=yg5QAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA182&lpg=PA182&dq=%22All+these+perplexities+develop+more+and+more+the+dreadful+fruitfulness+of+the+original+sin%22&source=bl&ots=PYcXRYqq9n&sig=JUYWQ5t-Er_VyLC3RCKHkC60pv0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAGoVChMI-cTzx47ZxwIVxhkeCh11XAfx#v=onepage&q=%22All%20these%20perplexities%20develop%20more%20and%20more%20the%20dreadful%20fruitfulness%20of%20the%20original%20sin%22&f=false
Debates of the Federal Convention (1787)

Thomas Wolfe photo
James Clerk Maxwell photo
John Wesley photo

“Desire is in men a hunger, in women only an appetite.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Women & men

Algis Budrys photo

“It isn’t given to very many men to have their dreams come true in their lifetimes.”

Algis Budrys (1931–2008) American writer

The Burning World, p. 58
The Unexpected Dimension (1960)

Camille Paglia photo

“Feminism, in all fields, has yet to produce a single scholar of the intellectual rank of scores of these learned men [e. g., Bruno Snell, Albin Lesky, Denys Page] in the German and British academic tradition.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders : Academe in the Hour of the Wolf, p. 204

Charles Darwin photo
Thomas Henry Huxley photo

“Scientific men get an awkward habit — no, I won't call it that, for it is a valuable habit — of believing nothing unless there is evidence for it; and they have a way of looking upon belief which is not based upon evidence, not only as illogical, but as immoral.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

Thomas Henry Huxley. "Lectures on Evolution Title: This is Essay# 3 from" Science and Hebrew Tradition." (1882); as cited in: William Trufant Foster, (1908) Argumentation and debating, p. 55
1880s

G. K. Chesterton photo
François Andrieux photo

“These wretched kings,
Of whom all men speak ill, have oft some good in them.”

François Andrieux (1759–1833) French man of letters and playwright

Ces malheureux rois,
Dont on dit tant de mal, ont du bon quelquefois.
Le Meunier de Sans-Souci. (Ed. 1818, Vol. III., p. 205).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 26.

Luís de Camões photo

“O foul disgrace, of knighthood lasting stain,
By men of arms a helpless lady slain!”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Contra uma dama, ó peitos carniceiros,
Feros vos amostrais, e cavaleiros?
Stanza 130, lines 7–8 (tr. William Julius Mickle); the death of Inês de Castro.
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto III

Paul de Lagarde photo

“Man’s greatest joy is to revere other men, or to put it less extravagantly, to recognize other men above himself, and to love and be loved by these men.”

Paul de Lagarde (1827–1891) German polymath, biblical scholar and orientalist

Es ist das höchste Glück des Menschen, anzubeten, oder, milder gesagt, andre Menschen über sich anzuerkennen, die er liebt und die ihn lieben.
Paul de Lagarde: Erinnerungen aus seinem Leben für die Freunde zusammengestellt (1894), S. 40
as cited in The Politics of Cultural Despair (1961), p. 29

Sören Kierkegaard photo
Archibald Hill photo

“All knowledge, not only that of the natural world, can be used for evil as well as good: and in all ages there continue to be people who think that its fruit should be forbidden. Does the future wlfare, therefore, of mankind depend of a refusal of science and a more intensive study of the Sermon on the Mount? There are others who hold the contray opinion, that more and more of science and its applications alone can bring prosperity and happiness to men. Both of these extremes views seem to me entirely wrong - though the second is the more perilous as more likely to be commonly accepted. The so-called conflict between science and religion is usually about words, too often the words of their unbalanced advocates: the reality lies somewhere in between. "Completeness and dignity", to use Tyndall's phrase, are brought to man by three main channels, first by the religiouos sentiment and its embodiment of ethical principles, secondly by the influence of what is beautiful in nature, human personality, or art, and thirdly, by the pursuit of scientific truth and its resolute use in improving human life. Some suppose that religion and beauty are incompatible: others, that the aesthetic has no relation to the scientific sense: both seem to me just as mistaken as those who hold that the scientific and the religious spirit are necessarily opposed. Co-operation is required, not conflict: for science can be used to express and apply the principles of ethics, and those principles themselves can guide the behaviour of scientific men: while the appreciation of what is good and beautiful can provide to both a vision of encouragement. Is there really then any special ethical dilemma which we scientific men, as distinct from other people, have to meet? I think not: unless it be to convince ourselves humbly that we are just like others in having moral issues to face. It is true that integrity of thought is the absolute condition of oour work, and that judgments of value must never be allowed to deflect our judgements of fact. But in this we are not unique. It is true that scientific research has opened up the possibility of unprecedented good, or unlimited harm, for manking: but the use is made of it depends in the end on the moral judgments of the whole community of men. It is totally impossible noew to reverse the process of discovery: it will certainly go on. To help to guide its use aright is not a scientific dilemma, but the honourable and compelling duty of a good citizen.”

Archibald Hill (1886–1977) English physiologist and biophysicist

The Ethical Dilemma Of Science, Hill, 1960. The Ethical Dilemma of Science and Other Writings https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=zaE1AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false. Rockefeller Univ. Press, pp. 88-89

Rousas John Rushdoony photo
John Ruskin photo
Arthur Cecil Pigou photo
Philo photo

“Bodies have men as their masters, souls their vices and passions.”

Philo (-15–45 BC) Roman philosopher

17.
Every Good Man is Free

Calvin Coolidge photo
Warren Farrell photo

“Together, we came to understand how we beg men to express feelings, but then when men do express feelings, we call it sexism, male chauvinism, or backlash.”

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

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. xxvii.

Saul D. Alinsky photo
Tanith Lee photo
Ann Coulter photo

“When we were fighting communism, OK, they had mass murderers and gulags, but they were white men and they were sane. Now we're up against absolutely insane savages.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

On "the war on terror", as quoted in Ann Coulter: The blonde assassin" in The Independent 16 August 2004) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/ann-coulter-the-blonde-assassin-556813.html.
2004

David Lloyd George photo

“Never have I had such great minds around me—Smuts, Balfour, Bonar Law…and Curzon. Curzon was perhaps not a great man, but he was a supreme Civil Servant. Compared to these men, the front benches of today are pigmies.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Quoted in Harold Nicolson's diary entry (6 July 1936), quoted in Nigel Nicolson (ed.), Harold Nicolson: Diaries and Letters. 1930-1939 (London: Collins, 1966), p. 268.
Later life

Democritus photo

“False men and shams talk big and do nothing.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Golden Sayings of Democritus

Leo Tolstoy photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Kate Bornstein photo
Andrew Marshall photo
Stella Vine photo

“I like strong/vulnerable interesting women, and then sometimes I like painting beautiful men, like Kurt Cobain, or Mr Darcy.”

Stella Vine (1969) English artist

"Stella Vine's The Waltz at Museum of New Art" http://www.detroitmona.com/stella_vine.htm, Detroit Museum of New Art, (2006-09-15.
On the subjects she paints.

Warren Farrell photo
Maxwell D. Taylor photo