Quotes about man
page 47

“Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived.”

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician, Writer and Author

Variant: Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.

Men

“One of the Georges - I forget which - once said that a certain number of hours' sleep each night - I cannot recall at the moment how many - made a man something which for the time being has slipped my memory.”

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

Source: Mike and Psmith

Sleep, Memory, Time, Night

“Do not be in a hurry, the right man will come at last”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“Nothing is slower than the true birth of a man.”

Marguerite Yourcenar book Memoirs of Hadrian

Rien n'est plus lent que la véritable naissance d'un homme.
Source: Memoirs of Hadrian (1951), p. 258

Birth

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Hyperion http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5436, Bk. III, Ch. IV (1839). <br class="br">Variant: Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad. <br class="br">Context: "Ah! this beautiful world!" said Flemming, with a smile. "Indeed, I know not what to think of it. Sometimes it is all gladness and sunshine, and Heaven itself lies not far off. And then it changes suddenly; and is dark and sorrowful, and clouds shut out the sky. In the lives of the saddest of us, there are bright days like this, when we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms and kiss it. Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our hearths nor in our hearts; and all without and within is dismal, cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad."

Secret, World, Sadness, Time

“No man can adequately reach and explain a single word of God with all his words”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

God

“A rational man never distorts or corrupts his own standards and judgment in order to appeal to the irrationality, stupidity, or dishonesty of others.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Stupidity

“Sometimes a man and a woman reach a crossroads and linger there, reluctant to take either way, knowing the wrong choice will mean the end… and knowing there’s so much worth saving.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

Way

“Our story is never written in isolation. We do not act in a one-man play. We can do nothing that does not affect other people, no matter how loudly we say, "It's my own business.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

People, Business

“When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Variant: When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.

“How often does a man ruin his disciples by remaining always with them! When men are once trained, it is essential that their leader leave them, for without his absence they cannot develop themselves. Plants always remain small under a big tree.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Men, Tree, Training

“And even a liar can be scared into telling the truth, same as honest man can be tortured into telling a lie.”

William Faulkner book Light in August

Source: Light in August

Truth, Lie

“Soon man will count all his days, and then smaller segments of the day, and then smaller still—until the counting consumes him, and the wonder of the world he has been given is lost.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The Time Keeper

World

“How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him--he has known a fear beyond every other.”

John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath

Source: The Grapes of Wrath

Hunger, Children, Fear

“A man convinced against his will
Is of the same opinion still”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People

“For what's the use of talking with a man who has a disease and thinks about the stars?”

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

Disease, Star, Thinking

“A man's honor always seems to want to kill a woman to satisfy it.”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) American feminist, writer, commercial artist, lecturer and social reformer

Source: The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Reader

“Nothing is more appealing than a handsome man who is also uncertain of himself.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Guilty Pleasures

Source: Guilty Pleasures

“Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

Universe

“Love is never any better than the lover. Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love a free man is never safe.”

Toni Morrison book The Bluest Eye

Source: The Bluest Eye

Love, People, Stupidity, Lovers

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Variant: It's a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
Source: Pride and Prejudice (1813)

Truth, Universe, Relationship, For Wife

“Every man's memory is his private literature.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Literature, Memory

“Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.”

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

394
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)
Context: The highfalutin aims of democracy, whether real or imaginary, are always assumed to be identical with its achievements. This, of course, is sheer hallucination. Not one of those aims, not even the aim of giving every adult a vote, has been realized. It has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

Men

“What is man? He's just a collection of chemicals with delusions of grandeur.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

“Thus, though I dislike to differ with such a great man, was simply ludicrous when he said that if god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him. The human invention of god is the problem to begin with.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

God, Problem

“When a man is born… there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.”

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Religion, Flying

“A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study.”

- Chinese proverb”

Alvin Toffler (1928–2016) American writer

Study

“You don't need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows”

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

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Subterranean Homesick Blues

Way, Weather

“Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust. They serve us in return for scraps. It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made.”

Roger A. Caras (1928–2001) American photographer

Love, Faith, Dogs, Universe

“You don't need to be told some things. You can sometimes tell more by a man's silence and the set of his head than by what he says.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Source: Jayber Crow

Silence

“The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? There is a brotherhood among all men. This must be recognized if life is to remain. We must learn the love of man.”

Pablo Casals (1876–1973) Catalan cellist and conductor

As quoted in Joys and Sorrows : Reflections‎ by Pablo Casals as told to Albert E. Kahn (1974) by Albert E. Kahn

Love, Life, Men, Learning

“I was a man before I was a king, and no true man walks away when a friend needs him.”

David Gemmell (1948–2006) British author of heroic fantasy

Source: Fall of Kings

“Everything in the universe is everything else. A man is a killer is a saint is a monkey is a cockroach is a goldfish is a whale, and the Devil is just the angel who asked for More.”

Craig Clevenger Dermaphoria

Source: Dermaphoria

Angels, Universe

“Man, you weigh a freaking ton," he told me. "What've you been eating, rocks?"
"Why, is your head missing some?" I croaked. His mouth almost quirked in a smile, and that's when I knew how upset he'd been”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

Smile

“Take care of him, Soteria. And remember it takes great courage and heart for a man who knows no kindness to show it to another. Even the wildest of beasts can be tamed by a patient and gentle hand. (Takeshi)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Courage, Heart

“Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit/Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste/Brought death into the world, and all our woe,/With loss of Eden, till one greater Man/Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,/Sing heavenly muse”

John Milton book Paradise Lost

Source: Paradise Lost

Death, World, Tree, Singing

“I repent me of the ignorance wherein I ever said that God made man out of nothing: there is no nothing out of which to make anything; God is all in all, and he made us out of himself.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

Source: Wind from the Stars

God

“The man glanced down and made a face. "I see that many pigeons have pooped upon these stairs," he remarked. "I shall remain standing, if that's not too rude.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

“Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.”

Samuel Butler book The Way of All Flesh

Source: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 14
Context: Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him.

Music, Literature, Back To Work

“Deep thinking is attainable only by a man of deep feeling, and all truth is a species of revelation”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Truth, Feeling, Thinking

“There is a resemblance between men and women, not a contrast. When a man begins to recognize his feeling, the two unite. When men accept the sensitive side of themselves, they come alive.”

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

Source: In Favor of the Sensitive Man and Other Essays

Women, Men, Feeling

“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Kubla Khan (1797 or 1798)
Source: The Complete Poems

Pleasure, Sea

“Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses to be bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?”

Anthony Burgess book A Clockwork Orange

Source: A Clockwork Orange

God, Way

“If there's anything I look down on, it's a man in a blue outfit.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

“Why doesn’t the fattest man in the world become a hockey goalie?”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

World, Hockey

“Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female — whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

“Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead," he suggested. "After that my own rule is to let everything alone.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Friendship, Learning, Dead

“God help the man who ever really loves you.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Love, God, Help

“Why do you wear a mask and hood?"
I think everybody will in the near future," was the man in black's reply. "They're terribly comfortable.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

Thinking, Future

“What is the real breath of a man — the breathing out or the breathing in?”

Margaret Atwood book The Blind Assassin

Source: The Blind Assassin

“What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Source: Existentialism Is a Humanism, lecture http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm (1946) <br class="br">Context: What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself. Thus, there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it. Man simply is. Not that he is simply what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills, and as he conceives himself after already existing – as he wills to be after that leap towards existence. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism.

World

“Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t have you by the throat.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Variant: Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat.
Source: Factotum

Life, World, Sleep, Clothes

“a man there was, though some did count him mad, the more he cast away the more he had.”

John Bunyan The Pilgrim's Progress

Source: The Pilgrim's Progress

Madness

“You can indulge your righteous rage but the things it comes out of are pretty cheap. The trick is to make yourself an instrument of your own policy. Whether you like it or not, that's the highest effectiveness man has achieved.”

Norman Mailer book The Naked and the Dead

Source: The Naked and the Dead

Rage

“You're a dead man, Arratay," Jerrel said through clenched teeth.

Halt smiled. "That's been said before. Yet here I am.”

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

Source: The Lost Stories

Smile, Dead

“It's hard to not like a man who not only notices the colors, but speaks them.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Color

“… when a man like Ethan finally learns to love, it's forever.

~ Fiona MacCarrick ~”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: If You Deceive

Love, Learning

“The things a man sees when he ain't got a gun.--Watson the Caretaker”

Stephen King (1947) American author

“A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.”

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet

Painting

“The angel has confided in me that he is going to ask the Lord if he can become Spider-Man. […] The children need heroes, he says. I think he just wants to swing from buildings in tight red jammies.”

Christopher Moore book Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Source: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Children, Angels, Confidence, Thinking

“Everything you have is to give. Thou art a phenomenon of philosophy and an unfortunate man.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Source: For Whom The Bell Tolls

Art

“A man begins dying at the moment of his birth. Most People live in denial of Death's patient courtship until, late in life and deep in sickness, they become aware of him sitting bedside.”

Dean Koontz book The Husband

Source: The Husband

Life, Death, People, Birth

“I understood that centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him.”

Ayn Rand book Anthem

Source: Anthem

Truth, Sense

“Nothing proves the man-made character of religion as obviously as the sick mind that designed hell.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Religion, Hell

“each man's hell is in a different place:
mine is just up and behind
my ruined face.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Variant: each man's hell is in a different
place: mine is just up and
behind
my ruined
face.
--from Let's Make a Deal
Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

Hell

“History had a slow pulse; man counted in years, history in generations”

Arthur Koestler book Darkness at Noon

Source: Darkness at Noon

History

“The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Mountain, Deep

“What a man knows hardly matters. It is what he does.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Source: The Wizard

“If you can not answer a man's argument, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

“The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.”

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

Friendship, Bird, Friendship, For Friend

“We cannot live without the Earth or apart from it, and something is shrivelled in a man's heart when he turns away from it and concerns himself only with the affairs of men”

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896–1953) American novelist

Source: Cross Creek

Men, Heart

“This looks like one of those unwelcome social summonses which call upon a man either to be bored or to lie.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Lie

“A man can only rise, conquer, and achieve by lifting up his thoughts.”

James Allen (1864–1912) British philosophical writer

“An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way.”

Charles Bukowski book Notes of a Dirty Old Man

Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1969)

Way

“I want him to burn for me, to not be able to go a day without touching me, holding me, caressing me. He’ll be an excellent lover. I want a man who knows how to please me”

Maya Banks (1964) Author

Source: The Tycoon's Rebel Bride

Lovers

“My brother, Jason, came into the bar, then, and sauntered over to give me a hug. He knows that women like a man who's good to his family and also kind to the disabled, so hugging me is a double whammy of recommendation.”

Charlaine Harris book Dead Until Dark

Source: Dead Until Dark

Women, Family

“A weak man in a corner is more dangerous than a strong man. (Inspector Miller)”

Agatha Christie book The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding

Source: The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding

Strong

“Ye always carry your women wi ye into battle, Ian Og. They're the root of your strength, man.”

Diana Gabaldon book Written in My Own Heart's Blood

Source: Written in My Own Heart's Blood

Women

“When a man does a queer thing, or two queer things, there may be a meaning to it, but when everything he does is queer, then you begin to wonder”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

“And does man simply choose evil, or does he create it?”

Ted Dekker book Three

Source: Thr3e

Evil

“The first duty of a man is to think for himself”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Thinking

“Imagine a man who stands before a mirror; a stone strikes it, and it falls to ruin all in an instant. And the man learns that he is himself, and not the mirrored man he had believed himself to be.”

Gene Wolfe book The Urth of the New Sun

Source: The Urth of the New Sun

Imagination, Learning

“Papa was a man with silver eyes, not dead ones.
Papa was an accordion!
But his bellows were all empty.
Nothing went in and nothing came out.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Dead, For Father

“No man may be completely invulnerable.”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

“Slavery is a sin when whites were put to the yoke, but not the African. All men are created equal, unless we decide you are not a man.”

Colson Whitehead book The Underground Railroad

Source: The Underground Railroad

Men

“The man was allergic to sleep.”

Scott Westerfeld book Leviathan

Source: Leviathan

Sleep

“The man irritated her just like a rash.”

Julie Garwood (1946) American writer

Source: Honor's Splendour

“Her heart had already been broken many times over, and yet she still believed she was destined to meet the man of her life.”

Paulo Coelho book The Devil and Miss Prym

Source: The Devil and Miss Prym

Life, Time, Heart

“It's all overrated, man. Sex is only a great thing if you're not getting any.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Sex

“A man of humanity is one who, in seeking to establish himself, finds a foothold for others and who, in desiring attaining himself, helps others to attain.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Help

“Let the past be content with itself, for man needs forgetfulness as well as memory”

James Stephens book Irish Fairy Tales

Source: Irish Fairy Tales

Memory, Past, Forgetting

“Patriotism… is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.”

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

“Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it's some place way off in de ocean where de black man is in power, but we don't know nothin' but what we see.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Way

“I'd been blindsided with the most painful knowledge: the first man to ever say he loved me had never loved me at all.

His passion had been artificial.

His pursuit of me had been choreographed.”

Charlaine Harris book Definitely Dead

Source: Definitely Dead

Love, Pain, Knowledge, Passion

“An unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

Truth, Lie, Courage, Time

“It's good to let God pick a man for you. We don't do so well when we pick them ourselves. They end up lipsticks in a drawer, all those wrong colors you thought looked so good in the package.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Queen of Everything

God, Color

“To free a man from error is to give, not to take away. Knowledge that a thing is false is a truth. Error always does harm; sooner or later it will bring mischief to the man who harbors it.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

"Religion: A Dialogue."
Variant translation: To free a man from error does not mean to take something from him, but to give him something.
Essays
Source: Essays and Aphorisms
Context: To free a man from error is to give, not to take away. Knowledge that a thing is false is a truth. Error always does harm; sooner or later it will bring mischief to the man who harbors it. Then give up deceiving people; confess ignorance of what you don't know, and leave everyone to form his own articles of faith for himself. Perhaps they won't turn out so bad, especially as they'll rub one another's corners down, and mutually rectify mistakes. The existence of many views will at any rate lay a foundation of tolerance. Those who possess knowledge and capacity may betake themselves to the study of philosophy, or even in their own persons carry the history of philosophy a step further.

Truth, Error, Knowledge, Falseness

“Your date appears to be hysterical," Rene told me.
"You think I should slap some man into him?”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

Thinking, Appearance