Quotes about man
page 43

“Once a man has seen society's black underbelly, he can never turn his back on it. Never pretend, like you do, that it doesn't exist.”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

“To the untrue man, the whole universe is false- it is impalpable- it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself is in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter

Light, Universe, Falseness

“If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Source: Civil Disobedience and Other Essays

Nature

“Hungry man, reach for the book: it is a weapon.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

Books

“The Brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: How to Fall in Love

Fear, Feeling, Courageous

“If you take a man by surprise, and behave with sufficient arrogance, he will generally do what you ask.
-Emerson”

Elizabeth Peters The Last Camel Died at Noon

Source: The Last Camel Died at Noon

“Tact is the ability to step on a man's toes without messing up the shine on his shoes.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Shoe

“I do this so you cannot help but hear. A wise man views a moonless night with fear.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Fear, Help, Night

“Self respect is something that can't be killed. The worst thing is to kill a man's pretense at it.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

“A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love he can't help looking like a sheep.”

Agatha Christie book The Mystery of the Blue Train

Miss Viner
Source: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)
Context: I was wrong about that young man of yours. A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love he can't help looking like a sheep. Now, whenever that young man looked at you he looked like a sheep. I take back all I said this morning. It is genuine.

Love, Help

“When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions.”

Carter G. Woodson book The Mis-Education of the Negro

Preface 
Source: The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933)
Context: When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his "proper place" and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.
The same educational process which inspires and stimulates the oppressor with the thought that he is everything and has accomplished everything worth while, depresses and crushes at the same time the spark of genius in the Negro by making him feel that his race does not amount to much and never will measure up to the standards of other peoples. The Negro thus educated is a hopeless liability of the race.

Thinking

“It's a long way from not having enough serotonin to thinking the world is "stale, flat and unprofitable"; even further to writing a play about a man driven by that thought.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Source: Girl, Interrupted

World, Way, Thinking

“It is essential that we realize once and for all that man is much more of a sex creature than a moral creature. The former is inherent, the other is grafted on.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

Sex

“The poet…is the man of metaphor: while the philosopher is interested only in the truth of meaning, beyond even signs and names, and the sophist manipulates empty signs…the poet plays on the multiplicity of signifieds.”

Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) French philosopher (1930-2004)

Truth

“It's a good thing he broke up with you because now you're free for when the right man finds you. Your prince is on his way."
"Right. I'm sure he was on his way but a truck hit him.”

Jennifer Crusie book Bet Me

Source: Bet Me

Way

“Rose: But now you know there was a man named Jack Dawson and that he saved me… in every way that a person can be saved”

James Cameron (1954) Canadian film director

Rose
Titanic (1997)
Context: A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets. But now you know there was a man named Jack Dawson, and that he saved me in every way that a person can be saved. I don't even have a picture of him. He exists now only in my memory.

Way, Personality

“You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his destiny. If he abandons that pursuit, it's because it wasn't true love.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Variant: You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his destiny. If he abandons that pursuit, it's because it wasn't true love... the love that speaks the Language of the World.
Source: The Alchemist

Love, Understanding

“If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

Time

“What seems natural to us is probably just something familiar in a long tradition that has forgotten the unfamiliar source from which it arose. And yet this unfamiliar source once struck man as strange and caused him to think and to wonder.”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

Nature, Thinking

“It was childish to feel disappointed, but childishness comes almost as naturally to a man as to a child.”

Isaac Asimov book Foundation

Source: Foundation

Disappointment, Feeling, Nature

“The successful man will profit from his mistakes and
try again in a different way.”

Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer

Way, Success, Motivational, Success

“No one can hurry me down to Hades before my time, but if a man's hour is come, be he brave or be he coward, there is no escape for him when he has once been born.”

Homér Iliad

Source: The Iliad

Time

“Sin, he reflected, is not what it is usually thought to be; it is not to steal and tell lies. Sin is for one man to walk brutally over the life of another and to be quite oblivious of the wounds he has left behind.”

Shūsaku Endō book Silence

Source: Silence

Life

“Man may have discovered fire, but women discovered how to play with it.”

Candace Bushnell book Sex and the City

Source: Sex and the City

Women, Relationship, Cute

“If there is one person I do despise more than another, it is the man who does not think exactly the same on all topics as I do.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

"On Eating and Drinking".
Source: Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)
Context: Foolish people — when I say "foolish people" in this contemptuous way I mean people who entertain different opinions to mine. If there is one person I do despise more than another, it is the man who does not think exactly the same on all topics as I do.

Thinking, Personality

“My demon ate them. (Nick)
What happened to the jocks? (Acheron)
Riiiight. And I suppose the Big Bad Wolf will be coming in right behind you to finish up? Or is it the Gingerbread Man I need to fear? (Nick)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

Fear, Wolf

“The warrior (Zsadist) rolled his black eyes. "Come on, man. What does it matter to me? You, Tohr. Britney Spears.”

Jessica Bird book Dark Lover

Source: Dark Lover

“We try to pay a man what he is worth and we are not inclined to keep a man who is not worth more than the minimum wage.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

“I want to confess as best I can, but my heart is void. The void is a mirror. I see my face and feel loathing and horror. My indifference to man has shut me out. I live now in a world of ghosts, a prisoner in my dreams.”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

Source: The Seventh Seal

World, Dreams, Feeling, Heart

“Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are”

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

“I believe in my mask-- The man I made up is me
I believe in my dance-- And my destiny”

Sam Shepard (1943–2017) American playwright and actor

Dance

“It is too late."

The old man shook his head. "It is never too late or too soon. It is when it is supposed to be."

He smiled. "There is a plan, Dor.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The Time Keeper

Smile

“Don't ever ask me again if I hate living anywhere with you and Jasmina. This Rock reminds me of the boy I was and being with you in the palace reminds me of the man I want to be.'

'Not just any man,' she whispered. 'A King. Mine.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Froi of the Exiles

Hate, Boy

“A man who denies his past is a man who truly denies himself a future, for he refuses to know himself, and to deny knowledge of oneself is to stumble through life as handicapped as the blind mute.”

Tobsha Learner (1959) British writer

Source: The Witch of Cologne

Life, Knowledge, Past, Future

“Reading maketh a full man; and writing an axact man. And, therefore, if a man write little, he need have a present wit; and if he read little, he need have much cunning to seem to know which he doth not.”

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

Reading

“You're a hero and a gentleman, you're kind and honest, but more than that, you're the first man I ever truly loved. And no matter what the future brings, you always will be, and I know that my life is better for it.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Love, Life, Future

“Life consists of what man is thinking about all day.”

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

Variant: You become what you think about all day long.

Life, Thinking

“Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, and its power of endurance - the cheerful man will do more in the same time, will do it better, will preserve it longer, than the sad or sullen.”

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

Sadness, Time

“At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Uneasy Money

The Adventures of Sally (1922)
Source: Uneasy Money

Women, Age

“But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There's no godliness there.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

Cats, Thinking, Bee

“Love comes like lightning, and disappears the same way. If you are lucky, it strikes you right. If not, you'll spend your life yearning for a man you can't have.”

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (1956) novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist

Source: The Palace of Illusions

Love, Life, Way

“What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

“The most tragic thing in the world is a man of genius who is not a man of honor.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

World

“I have nothing to say of my working life, only that a tie is a noose, and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he's not careful.”

Yann Martel (1963) Canadian author best known for the book Life of Pi

Life

“And this wise man said: stop.
He said, stop asking God to bless what you're doing.
Get involved in what God is doing — because it's already blessed.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

National Prayer Breakfast (2006)
Context: A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord's blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it... I have a family, please look after them... I have this crazy idea...
And this wise man said: stop.
He said, stop asking God to bless what you're doing.
Get involved in what God is doing — because it's already blessed.

God

“The lions sing and the hills take flight.
The moon by day, and the sun by night.
Blind woman, deaf man, jackdaw fool.
Let the Lord of Chaos rule.”

Robert Jordan Lord of Chaos

Chant from a children’s game heard in Great Arvalon, the Fourth Age
(15 October 1994)
Source: Lord of Chaos

Fools, Singing, Sun, Night

“He felt like a man who, chasing rainbows, has had one of them suddenly turn and bite him in the leg.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Eggs, Beans and Crumpets (1940)

“I think women rule the world, and that no man has ever done anything that a woman either hasn't allowed him to do or encouraged him to do.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Rolling Stone interview (21 June 1984)

Women, World, Thinking

“It can be exhausting eating a meal cooked by a man. With a woman, it's, Ho hum, pass the beans. A guy, you have to act like he just built the Taj Mahal.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Queen of Everything

Guy, Cooking

“You take a man half-bad and a woman half-bad and put their two good halves together and you got one human all good to share between. That's you [our son].”

Ray Bradbury book Something Wicked This Way Comes

Source: Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962), Chapter 28

“Men love a submissive woman, Damon said simply. Even when they say the don't. There's just something about a beautiful, soft woman looking to them to protect and take care of them that inspires a man to greatness.”

Maya Banks (1964) Author

Source: Sweet Surrender

Love, Men, Beauty

“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.”

David Brinkley (1920–2003) American journalist

Success, Motivational, Success, Attitude

“Like the Bible tells us, when a man will lay down his life for a friend, well, then there ain't no greater love in this here world than that.”

Bette Greene book Summer of My German Soldier

Source: Summer of My German Soldier

Love, Life, World

“everything is relative, one man’s absolute belief is another man’s fairy tale;”

Salman Rushdie book Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights

Source: Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights

“I'm the Super-sized McShizzle, man!" Leo said. "I'm Leo Valdez, bad boy supreme. And the ladiesa bad boy.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Boy

“Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own;
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow, do thy worst, for I have lived today.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Book III, Ode 29, lines 65–68.
Imitation of Horace (1685)

Happiness

“A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Variant: A man who is not a father to his children can never be a real man
Source: The Godfather

Family, Time, For Men

“Abe shook his head, and now the smile was gone altogether. "That's not the reason either. Don't lie to me little girl."
I felt my hackles going up. "And don't interrogate me, old man.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Lie, Smile, Girl

“« Barabas pulled Christopher out of the cage. The man stared up at him. “I died, didn’t I? Are you an angel?”
“Sure,” Barabas said. “Follow me to the Heavenly Shower »”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Rises

Angels

“I thought that a man can be an enemy of other men, of the moments of other men, but not of a country: not of fireflies, words, gardens, streams of water, sunsets.”

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

The Garden of Forking Paths (1942), The Garden of Forking Paths

Men, Water, Country

“Every man’s island, Jean Louise, every man’s watchman, is his conscience. There is no such thing as a collective conscious.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“If a man never contradicts himself, the reason must be that he virtually never says anything at all.”

Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) Austrian physicist

Source: What Is Life? with Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches

“I'm an educated man, the prisons I know are subtle ones.”

Roberto Bolaño book The Savage Detectives

Source: The Savage Detectives

Education

“You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Variant: You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.
Source: Women

World, Time

“It's a hell of a thing; killin' a man. You take away everything he ever had and ever would have.”

Clint Eastwood (1930) actor and director from the United States

Hell

“A man trusts another man when he sees enough of himself in him.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

“Now I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance — a sharp, vindictive glance.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

"My Senegalese Birds and Siamese Cats", Holiday Magazine; reprinted in Lanterns & Lances (1961).
From Lanterns and Lances‎

Dogs, Cats

“What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

Heart

“Henry's breath hissed out through his teeth. That ba-bad man, he finished, with a quick glance at Cecily, who rolled her eyes.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

“Take a good rest, small bird," he said. "Then go in and take your chance like any man or bird or fish.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

Source: The Old Man and the Sea

Bird, Fish, Chance

“A man said to a Dervish: “Why do I not see you more often?” The Dervish replied, “Because the words ‘Why have you not been to see me?’ are sweeter to my ear than the words ‘Why have you come again?”

Robert Greene book The 48 Laws of Power

Source: The 48 Laws of Power

“I never seek to defeat the man I am fighting, " he explained. "I seek to defeat his confidence. A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory. Two men are equals - true equals - only when they both have equal confidence.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Men, Confidence, Victory, Fight

“A man who trusts everyone is a fool, and a man who trusts no one is a fool. We are all fools, if we live long enough.”

Robert Jordan Winter's Heart

Lews Therin Telamon
(9 November 2000)
Source: Winter's Heart

Fools

“There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.”

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

Demonology
1880s, Lectures and Biographical Sketches (1883)

“Perhaps not willingly, but pain can make a man do things he wouldn't willingly do.”

Anne Bishop (1955) American fiction writer

Source: Daughter of the Blood

Pain

“Do you expect sincerity in man when hypocrisy is the very keynote of human nature? We are nurtured on it; we are schooled in it, we live by it; and we rarely realize it.”

Rafael Sabatini book Scaramouche

Book 3, Chapter 16
Source: Scaramouche

School, Nature, Sincerity

“The man who is honest and good ought to be exactly like a man who smells strong, so that the bystander as soon as he comes near him must smell whether he choose or not.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

XI, 15
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book XI
Source: The Apology, Phaedo & Crito of Plato/Golden Sayings of Epictetus/Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

Strong

“For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.”

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

1850s, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? (1852)
Context: At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

God, Feeling, Light