Quotes about man
page 5

“You may have killed God beneath the weight of all that you have said; but don't imagine that, with all that you are saying, you will make a man that will live longer than he.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Source: The Archaeology of Knowledge & The Discourse on Language

God, Imagination

“Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Life, Way

“I want to marry her, when I grow up to be a man.”

Tamora Pierce book Mastiff

Source: Mastiff

“The real lover is the man who can thrill you by kissing your forehead or smiling into your eyes or just staring into space.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Smile, Lovers, Kiss, Cute

“God creates dinosaurs, God kills dinosaurs, God creates man, man kills God, man brings back dinosaurs.”

Michael Crichton book Jurassic Park

Source: Jurassic Park

God

“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Μηκέθ᾽ ὅλως περὶ τοῦ οἷόν τινα εἶναι τὸν ἀγαθὸν ἄνδρα διαλέγεσθαι, ἀλλὰ εἶναι τοιοῦτον.
X, 16
Variant: Don't go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one.
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book X

Time, Wise, For Men

“Man is a genius when he is dreaming.”

Akira Kurosawa (1910–1998) Japanese film maker

Variant: Man is a genius when he is dreaming.

Dreams, Good Night, For Men

“A man does not have to be an angel to be a saint.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Angels

“A man who wants the truth becomes a scientist; a man who wants to give free play to his subjectivity may become a writer; but what should a man do who wants something in between?”

Robert Musil book The Man Without Qualities

Source: The Man Without Qualities

Truth

“Next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise. The gift of language combined with the gift of song was given to man that he should proclaim the Word of God through Music.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

God, Music

“I don’t see myself being special; I just see myself having more responsibilities than the next man. People look to me to do things for them, to have answers.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

People

“A woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty.”

Rudyard Kipling book Plain Tales from the Hills

Source: Plain Tales from the Hills

“Every woman becomes their mother. That's their tragedy. And no man becomes his. That's his tragedy.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Algernon, Act I.
Variant: All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

Funny

“Three things are necessary for man to be saved: knowledge of what is to be believed, knowledge of what is to be desired, and knowledge of what is to be done.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Two Precepts of Charity (1273)
Sermons on the Ten Commandments (Collationes in decem praeceptes, c. 1273), Prologue (opening sentence)
Variant translation: Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.
Original: (la) Tria sunt homini necessaria ad salutem: scilicit scientia credendorum, scientia desiderandorum, et scientia operandorum.

“The truth brings no man a fortune.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Truth

“A conservative is a man who sits and thinks, mostly sits.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Thinking

“Of all that breathes and crawls across the earth,
our mother earth breeds nothing feebler than a man.”

Homér Iliad

XVIII. 130–131 (tr. Robert Fagles). Cf. Iliad, XVII. 446–447.
Samuel Butler's translation:
: Man is the vainest of all creatures that have their being upon earth.
Robert Fitzgerald's translation:
: Of mortal creatures, all that breathe and move,
earth bears none frailer than mankind.
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)
Variant: Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man.
Source: The Iliad

“A man is never as big as when he is on his knees to help a child.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

Help

“Call no man happy until he is dead.”

Solón (-638–-558 BC) Athenian legislator

Happiness, Dead

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

Blaise Pascal Pensées

Variant: All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone.
Source: Pensées

Problem

“Fight on, brave knights! Man dies, but glory lives! Fight on; death is better than defeat! Fight on brave knights! for bright eyes behold your deeds!”

Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet

Death, Fight

“He is his own best friend and takes delight in privacy whereas the man of no virtue or ability is his own worst enemy and is afraid of solitude.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Solitude

“God did not create woman from man’s head, that he should command her, nor from his feet, that she should be his slave, but rather from his side, that she should be near his heart.”

Myles Munroe (1954–2014) Bahamian Evangelical Christian minister

Source: The Purpose and Power of Love & Marriage

God, Heart

“A man who has been through bitter experiences and travelled far enjoys even his sufferings after a time”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

Source: The Odyssey

Travel, Suffering, Time

“But there is only one thing that has power completely, and this is love. Because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power.”

Alan Paton (1903–1988) South African writer and activist

Source: Cry, The Beloved Country

Love

“If a man, having lashed two hulls together, is crossing a river, and an empty boat happens along and bumps into him, no matter how hot-tempered the man may be, he will not get angry. But if there should be someone in the other boat, then he will shout out to haul this way or veer that. If his first shout is unheeded, he will shout again, and if that is not heard, he will shout a third time, this time with a torrent of curses following. In the first instance, he wasn't angry; now in the second he is. Earlier he faced emptiness, now he faces occupancy. If a man could succeed in making himself empty, and in that way wander through the world, then who could do him harm?”

Zhuangzi (-369–-286 BC) classic Chinese philosopher

World, Way, Time

“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”

Alexis De Tocqueville (1805–1859) French political thinker and historian

12 September 1848, "Discours prononcé à l'assemblée constituante le 12 Septembre 1848 sur la question du droit au travail", Oeuvres complètes, vol. IX, p. 546 https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Tocqueville_-_%C5%92uvres_compl%C3%A8tes,_%C3%A9dition_1866,_volume_9.djvu/564; Translation (from Hayek, The Road to Serfdom): Original text: La démocratie étend la sphère de l'indépendance individuelle, le socialisme la resserre. La démocratie donne toute sa valeur possible à chaque homme, le socialisme fait de chaque homme un agent, un instrument, un chiffre. La démocratie et le socialisme ne se tiennent que par un mot, l'égalité; mais remarquez la différence : la démocratie veut l'égalité dans la liberté, et le socialisme veut l'égalité dans la gêne et dans la servitude. 1840s

Democracy, Freedom

“Man is above all else mind, consciousness -- that is, he is a product of history, not of nature.”

Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) Italian writer, politician, theorist, sociologist and linguist

History, Nature

“I've said it before and I'll say it again, my lord. You are an evil man.”

Tamora Pierce Squire

Source: Squire

Evil

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

“The education of a man is never completed until he dies.”

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

As quoted in Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 175

Education

“I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds, and I very rarely change it.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Change

“Every man had to die. He’d always found it odd that so many died when they were old, as logic said that was the point in their lives when they’d had the most practice not dying.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: Shadows of Self

“I need someone physically stronger than me…. I am always on top. It's really unfortunate. I am begging for the man that can put me on the bottom. Or the woman. Anybody that can take me down.”

Angelina Jolie (1975) American actress, film director, and screenwriter

“A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn book Cancer Ward

Source: Cancer Ward

Happiness

“Give me that man that is not passion's slave, and I will wear him in my heart's core, in my heart of heart, as I do thee.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

Passion, Heart

“To the past, or to the future. To an age when thought is free. From the Age of Big Brother, from the Age of the Thought Police, from a dead man - greetings!”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Age, Past, Future, Dead

“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

“I expect nothing of man, and disown the race. The only folly is expecting what is never attained; man is most contemptible when compared with his own pretensions. It is better to laugh at man from outside the universe, than to weep for him within.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Universe

“O my body, make of me always a man who questions!”

Frantz Fanon book Black Skin, White Masks

Variant: Oh my body, make of me a man who always questions!
Source: Black Skin, White Masks

Question

“A man may stand for the justice of God, but a woman stands for His Mercy.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Source: Life Is Worth Living

God, Justice

“Well, I'd love to wear a rainbow everyday and tell the world that everything's okay / But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back / 'Til things are brighter, I'm the man in black.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

Source: Man in Black

Love, World

“There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.”

Terry Pratchett book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

Family

“Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian

The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (1944)
Source: The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr: Selected Essays and Addresses

Justice, Democracy

“I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it? What is true for writing and for a love relationship is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don't know what will be the end. My field is the history of thought. Man is a thinking being.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Truth, Power, Self : An Interview with Michel Foucault (25 October 1982)

Love, Life, Books, Feeling

“I had no shoes, and I felt sorry for myself until I met a man who had no feet. I took his shoes. Now I feel better.”

George Carlin When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?

Source: Books, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? (2004)

Shoe, Feeling

“Besides, isn't it confoundedly easy to think you're a great man if you aren't burdened with the slightest idea that Rembrandt, Beethoven, Dante or Napoleon ever lived?”

Stefan Zweig (1881–1942) Austrian writer

Source: Chess Story

Idea, Thinking

“No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one.”

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

“Wherever a heart beats with love, wherever Faith and Reason utter their oracles, there is God, as formerly in the hearts of seers and prophets. No soil on earth is so holy as the good man’s heart.”

Albert Pike (1809–1891) Confederate States Army general and Freemason

Love, God, Faith, Heart

“Sleep is not, death is not; Who seem to die Live. House you were born in, Friends of your spring-time, old man and young maid, Day's toil and it's guerdon, They are all vanishing, Fleeing to fables, Cannot be moored”

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

Death, Spring, Sleep, Time

“Example is not the main thing. It is the only thing. That is, if the one giving the example is not saying to himself, 'Behold I am giving an example.' That spoils it. Anyone thinking of the example he will give to others has lost his simplicity. Only as a man has simplicity can his example influence others.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Sometimes presented in paraphrased form, such as "Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing" https://books.google.com/books?id=5Za7o6teOHoC&pg=PR18&dq=%22example+is+not+the+main+thing%22+schweitzer&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjFh4m9vqvMAhUG02MKHRqZDtsQ6AEIMzAE#v=onepage&q=%22example%20is%20not%20the%20main%20thing%22%20&f=false. God's Own Man (1952)

Thinking

“I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was on of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive.”

Harriet Tubman (1820–1913) African-American abolitionist and humanitarian

Modernized rendition: I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted, and when the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me.
The phrase "" is a slogan made famous during the independence struggle of several countries.
1880s, Harriet, The Moses of Her People (1886)
Variant: There was one of two things I had a right to: liberty or death. If I could not have one, I would take the other, for no man should take me alive. I should fight for liberty as long as my strength lasted.
Context: I had reasoned dis out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death; if I could not have one, I would have de oder; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted, and when de time came for me to go, de Lord would let dem take me.

Death

“When the white man turns tyrant, it is his own freedom that he destroys.”

George Orwell book Shooting an Elephant

Source: Shooting an Elephant

Freedom

“The good man is the man who, no matter how morally unworthy he has been, is moving to become better.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

For Men

“What is demanded of man is not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

Life

“The man who is afraid to risk failure seldom has to face success.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

Source: Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court

Failure, Success

“A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays

Life, Lying

“If man is to survive, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life's exciting variety, not something to fear.”

Gene Roddenberry (1921–1991) American television screenwriter and producer

Life, Men, Fear, Idea

“Even god doesn't propose to judge a man till his last days, why should you and I?”

Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer

God

“sleep is the most innocent creature there is and a sleepless man
the most guilty.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Source: Letters to Milena

Sleep

“Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man?”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

God

“Character, not circumstances, makes the man.”

Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor

"Democracy and Education" http://web.archive.org/20071031084046/www.historycooperative.org/btw/Vol.4/html/222.html, speech, Institute of Arts and Sciences, Brooklyn NY (30 September 1896)

“I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Attributed to Einstein by his colleague Léopold Infeld in his book Quest: An Autobiography (1949), p. 291 http://books.google.com/books?id=fsvXYpOSowkC&q=%22garbage+man%22#v=snippet&q=%22garbage%20man%22&f=false Attributed in posthumous publications

Way, Universe, Heart Touching

“If you set yourself to it, you can live the same life, rich or poor. You can keep on with your books and your ideas. You just got to say to yourself, "I'm a free man in here" - he tapped his forehead - "and you're all right.”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and Out in Paris and London

Life, Books, Idea

“Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.”

William Shakespeare Julius Caesar

Source: Julius Caesar

Men, World

“There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It is summed up in a single word-- Man”

George Orwell book Animal Farm

Source: Animal Farm

Problem

“And then many things became very clear… we learned perfectly that the life of a single human being is worth millions of times more than all the property of the richest man on earth.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Life, Learning, Time

“A man who is intimate with God is not intimidated by man.”

Leonard Ravenhill (1907–1994) British writer

Source: Meat For Men (n. d.)

God

“Women can accept the fact that a man is a rotter, a swindler, a drug taker, a confirmed liar, and a general swine, without batting an eyelash, and without its impairing their affection for the brute in the least. Women are wonderful realists.”

Agatha Christie book Murder in Mesopotamia

Source: Murder in Mesopotamia

Women, Swine

“Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man.”

Erica Jong (1942) Novelist, poet, memoirist, critic

Feeling

“Violence can only be concealed by a Lie, & the Lie can only be maintained by Violence…. Any man, who has once proclaimed Violence as his Method, is inevitably forced to take the Lie as his Principle”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Lie

“So sweet and delicious do I become,
when I am in bed with a man
who, I sense, loves and enjoys me,
that the pleasure I bring excels all delight,
so the knot of love, however tight
it seemed before, is tied tighter still.”

Veronica Franco (1546–1591) Italian poet and courtesan

Source: Poems and Selected Letters

Love, Pleasure, Sense

“Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor”

Alexis Carrel (1873–1944) French surgeon and biologist

Suffering, For Men

“Do not merely practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; it deserves that, for only art and science can exalt man to divinity.”

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer

Fahre fort, übe nicht allein die Kunst, sondern dringe auch in ihr Inneres; sie verdient es, denn nur die Kunst und die Wissenschaft erhöhen den Menschen bis zur Gottheit.
Letter to Emilie, July 17, 1812.
Quoted in Musical news, Vol. 3 (1892), p. 627

Secret, Art, Way, Science

“Every man always has handy a dozen glib little reasons why he is right not to sacrifice himself.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Source: The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

“A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Fools, Boy

“It's hard to resist a bad boy who's a good man.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Happy Ever After

Boy

“A man knows when he is growing old because he begins to look like his father.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

Father's Day, For Father

“Suicide is man's way of telling God, 'You can't fire me - I quit!”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

God, Way, Suicide

“Of all I have ever seen or learned, that book seems to me the noblest, the wisest, and the most powerful expression of man's life upon this earth — and also the highest flower of poetry, eloquence, and truth. I am not given to dogmatic judgments in the matter of literary creation, but if I had to make one I could say that Ecclesiastes is the greatest single piece of writing I have ever known, and the wisdom expressed in it the most lasting and profound.”

Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938) American writer

Life, Wisdom, Truth, Books

“I don't advocate violence; but if a man steps on my toes, I'll step on his…”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

George Orwell book Animal Farm

Source: Animal Farm

For Men

“They are fools who kiss and tell'--
Wisely has the poet sung.
Man may hold all sorts of posts
If he'll only hold his tongue.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Fools, Kiss

“How can you thank a man for giving you what's already yours? How then can you thank him for giving you only part of what's already yours?”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)

Parting

“What one man can invent, another can discover.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventure of the Dancing Men

Source: The Adventure of the Dancing Men

“All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms enfold.”

William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice

Source: The Merchant of Venice

Life

“The best smell in the world is that man that you love.”

Jennifer Aniston (1969) television and film actress from the United States

Love, World

“Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

World, Change

“Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry… no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) English philosopher, born 1588

Life, Death, Men, War

“The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.
Carl Jung
Swiss psychologist (1875 - 1961)”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

“The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

“Now he had recognized himself as a dead man it became important to stay alive as long as possible.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Dead

“What is troubling us is the tendency to believe that the mind is like a little man within.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Remarks to John Wisdom, quoted in Zen and the Work of WIttgenstein by Paul Weinpaul in The Chicago Review Vol. 12, (1958), p. 70
Attributed from posthumous publications

“A woman should soften but not weaken a man.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

“After all, how can a mere dragon expect to tell a man like yourself what to do? In fact, everyone should stand in awe of your brilliance of finding the only dead end.
- Saphira”

Christopher Paolini book Eragon

Source: Eragon

Dead

“Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"Benefit Of Clergy: Some Notes On Salvador Dalí," Dickens, Dali & Others: Studies in Popular Culture (1944) http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/dali/english/e_dali

Life, Lying