Quotes about man

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As per an article published in the New York Times in 1975, this was King Faisal's favorite quote. https://www.nytimes.com/1975/03/26/archives/faisal-rich-and-powerful-led-saudis-into-20th-century-and-to-arab.html

Diary entry on James Joyce's Ulysses (16 August 1922), quoted in Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary (1953; 1965), p. 47

Bk I, Ch II
The Ethics Of Aristotle (Vol. I)

The Glass Bees (1957)

Source: A Dance with Dragons. Jojen

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Source: I Capture the Castle

Source: Pay It Forward

Source: A Girl's Guide to Vampires

1960s, Voting Rights Act signing speech (1965)
Context: If you do this, then you will find, as others have found before you, that the vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.

Source: A Raisin in the Sun: The Unfilmed Original Screenplay

According to Ruskin scholar George P. Landow, there is no evidence that this quotation or its variants can be found in any of Ruskin's works.
[Landow, George P., A Ruskin Quotation?, VictorianWeb.org, 2007-07-27, http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/ruskin/quotation.html, 2013-01-07]
Disputed

Source: Wise Blood

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Compensation
Context: Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead skin, and when they would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. Blame is safer than praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies. In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor.

Source: Dragonfly in Amber

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 17
Context: I got into bed, opened the bottle, worked the pillow into a hard knot behind my back, took a deep breath, and sat in the dark looking out of the window. It was the first time I had been alone for five days. I was a man who thrived on solitude; without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me. I took no pride in my solitude; but I was dependent on it. The darkness of the room was like sunlight to me. I took a drink of wine.

The Garden of Forking Paths (1942), The Garden of Forking Paths
Source: Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Source: The Name of the Rose

Source: On Heroes, Hero Worship and the Heroic in History

Source: Les Misérables

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)
Source: The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism

Source: Twisted

Source: It Can't Happen Here

Source: Lord of the Flies

As quoted in Think, Vol. 4-5 (1938), p. 32

Source: Inherent Vice

Source: The Woman in White

Source: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

Remarks Recorded for the Opening of a USIA Transmitter at Greenville, North Carolina (8 February 1963) Audio at JFK Library (01:29 - 01:40) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKWHA-161-010.aspx · Text of speech at The American Presidency Project http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9551
1963
Variant: A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. Ideas have endurance without death.

Source: The Other Boleyn Girl

Source: Cell

Source: Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

Source: The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal

Source: The Moving Finger

Source: Mine Till Midnight

Uncommon Criminals

Variant: Women are their own worst enemies. And guilt is the main weapon of self-torture... Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man.
Source: Fear of Flying

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Source: The Forsyte Saga

Source: Ever After

Source: Blood Meridian (1985), Chapter II
Source: Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West
Context: A man’ s at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there. It aint the heart of a creature that is bound in the way that God has set for it. You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.

Variant: Show me a man with a tattoo and I'll show you a man with an interesting past.

Source: The Analects

Source: Saga, Vol. 1

Source: 100 Selected Poems

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: The God of Small Things

Source: East of Eden

Source: Heaven, Texas

Source: Heart of Darkness

Source: Winesburg, Ohio

Source: The Scarlet Letter (1850), Chapter XX: The Minister in a Maze

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Heartfire (1998), Chapter 1.

Source: The Crossing

Source: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950)
Variant: Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone.
Context: Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone, and the only one who seeks out another. His nature – if that word can be used in reference to man, who has 'invented' himself by saying 'no' to nature – consists in his longing to realize himself in another. Man is nostalgia and a search for communion. Therefore, when he is aware of himself he is aware of his lack of another, that is, of his solitude.

Source: Mockingjay

Source: Cerulean Sins

Source: Incarceron

Variant: I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat was threadbare - there were holes at his elbows; the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul.
Source: Les Misérables

Source: Heart of Darkness

Source: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Chapter 20 (p. 121)

Source: Men Explain Things to Me

Source: Life Among the Lutherans

Source: The Last Little Blue Envelope

Source: Man for Himself (1947), Ch. 3 "Human Nature and Character

Source: The Holy Terrors

Source: The Courage to Be (1952), p. 127
Source: Systematic Theology, Vol 2: Existence and the Christ
Context: Plato … teaches the separation of the human soul from its “home” in the realm of pure essences. Man is estranged from what he essentially is. His existence in a transitory world contradicts his essential participation in the eternal world of ideas.

Source: Gone Tomorrow

Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.
Einstein paraphrasing Schopenhauer. Reportedly from On The Freedom Of The Will (1839), as translated in The Philosophy of American History: The Historical Field Theory (1945) by Morris Zucker, p. 531
Variant translations:
Man can do what he wants but he cannot want what he wants.
As quoted in The Motivated Brain: A Neurophysiological Analysis of Human Behavior (1991) by Pavel Vasilʹevich Simonov, p. 198
We can do what we wish, but we can only wish what we must.
As quoted by Einstein in "What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck" The Saturday Evening Post (26 October 1929) p. 17. A scan of the article is available online here http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/uploads/satevepost/what_life_means_to_einstein.pdf (see p. 114).
Attributed
Source: Essays and Aphorisms

Source: Sweet Persuasion

Source: Beautiful Ruins

Source: Torch

Source: "Einstein's Reply to Criticisms" (1949), The World As I See It (1949)
Context: What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in putting it? I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.

Source: Les Misérables

Source: The Lynda Barry Experience

Source: Unwind

Source: On the Road

1755, p. 83
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

Source: The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception

Source: Voyager

(Lyrics from Justify My Love).