Quotes about man
page 51

“Oh, about beer I never lie. A man who lies about beer makes enemies.”

Stephen King book Pet Sematary

Jud, to Louis
Source: Pet Sematary (1983)

Lie, Beer

“It's a man's business to be what he is, and to be it in style.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

Business

“You can't hide the thunderbolt. When it hits you, everybody can see it. Christ, man, don't be ashamed of it, some men pray for the thunderbolt. You're a very lucky fellow. - Calo”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Source: The Godfather

Men, Christ

“There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

Pain, Happiness, Pleasure, Feeling

“After all the world is indeed beautiful and if we were any other creature than man we might be continuously happy in it.”

Sebastian Barry book The Secret Scripture

Source: The Secret Scripture

Happiness, World, Beauty

“Sometimes lying was the better part of valor and the only way to save a man’s butt.”

Christine Feehan American writer

Source: Wild Rain

Way, Lying, Parting

“No one had ever said such things to her before. People were intimidated by her self-possession and no-nonsense demeanor. No man would ever dream of calling her adorable, sweet, darling… and certainly no one had ever made herthat way.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Suddenly You

People, Dreams, Way

“There is nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse.”

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

According to The quote verifier: who said what, where, and when (2006), Keyes, Macmillan, p. 91 ISBN 0312340044 , the cover of a trade magazine once credited this observation to Churchill, but it dates back well into the nineteenth century, and has been variously attributed to Henry Ward Beecher, Oliver Wendell Holmes, w:Theodore Roosevelt, w:Thomas Jefferson, w:Will Rogers and Lord Palmerston, among others. One documented use in Social Silhouettes (1906) by George William Erskine Russell, p. 218 wherein a character attributes the saying to Lord Palmerston.
Misattributed

Horse

“If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house, then in a field,… it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Light, Housing

“What makes a man a man? A friend of mine once wondered. Is it his origins? The way he comes to life? I don't think so. It's the choices he makes. Not how he starts things, but how he decides to end them.”

Guillermo del Toro (1964) Mexican film director

Source: Hellboy: The Art of the Movie

Life, Way, Thinking

“To find a man's true character, play golf with him.”

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

“mr youse needn't be so spry
concernin questions arty

each has his tastes but as for i
i likes a certain party

gimme the he-man's solid bliss
for youse ideas i'll match youse

a pretty girl who naked is
is worth a million statues”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Girl, Idea, Question

“Finally, a human man saw me as intensely valuable. Just my luck he was happily married and thought I was a freak.”

Charlaine Harris Dead and Gone

Source: Dead and Gone

“There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Men, For Men

“The trouble with you, dear, is that you think an angel of the Lord as a creature with wings, whereas he is probably a scruffy little man with a bowler hat.”

Josephine Tey book The Franchise Affair

Source: The Franchise Affair

Angels, Thinking

“Never trust a man who reads only one book.”

Arturo Pérez-Reverte (1951) Spanish writer and journalist

Source: Purity of Blood

Books, Reading

“You know, I would date if I could find a man worth shaving my legs for. But most are such a waste of time that I’d rather sit at home and watch reruns of Hee Haw.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

Home, Time

“Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge - it is as immortal as the heart of man.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Knowledge, Heart

“Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man's freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men.”

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

Source: The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism

Men, Freedom

“The man that I named The Giver passed along to the boy knowledge, history, memories, color, pain, laughter, love, and truth. Every time you place a book in the hands of a child, you do the same thing.”

Lois Lowry book The Giver

Source: The Giver

Love, Pain, Truth, Books

“People derived too much pleasure from seeing their fellow man morally humiliated to spoil that pleasure by hearing out an explanation.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

People, Pleasure

“The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.”

Leo Tolstoy book A Confession

Source: Confession (1882), Ch. 5, translated by David Patterson, 1983
Source: A Confession

Life, Knowledge

“Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Life, Dreams, Future

“[I]t is the wine that leads me on,
the wild wine
that sets the wisest man to sing
at the top of his lungs,
laugh like a fool – it drives the
man to dancing… it even
tempts him to blurt out stories
better never told.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

Source: The Odyssey

Fools, Wine, Singing, Dance

“But you might as well bid a man struggling in the water, rest within arm's length of the shore! I must reach it first, and then I'll rest.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

Water

“Late last night and the night before, tommyknockers, tommyknockers knocking on my door. I wanna go out, don't know if I can 'cuz I'm so afraid of the tommyknocker man.”

Stephen King The Tommyknockers

Source: The Tommyknockers

Night

“Which would be worse, to live as a monster or to die as a good man?”

Dennis Lehane book Shutter Island

Source: Shutter Island

“Nykyrian gave him a feral grimace. But when he spoke, his soft, lilting tone belied his fierce expression. “Syn… what can I say? I love you, man. I can’t live without you. are the air I breathe.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of Silence

Love

“Some men […] choose to seek greatness, while others are forced to it. It is always better to choose than to be forced.
A man who is forced is never completely his own master. He must dance on the strings of those who forced him.”

Robert Jordan The Great Hunt

Source: The Great Hunt

Men, Dance

“Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.”

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

“In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth.”

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

Source: Nature and Selected Essays

Life, Youth

“Before a man's forty, girls cost nothing. After that you have to pay money, or tell a story. Of the two, it's the story that hurts most. Anyway I'm not forty yet.”

Ian Fleming book Diamonds Are Forever

Source: Diamonds Are Forever

Money, Girl, Hurt

“… if gold rust, what then will iron do?/ For if a priest be foul in whom we trust/ No wonder that a common man should rust….”

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400) English poet

“Why'd you want to sing about sad things?" Candy had asked him.
"Because any fool can be happy," he'd said to her.
"It takes a man with real heart"
—he'd made a fist and laid it against his chest—
"to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep.”

Clive Barker Days of Magic, Nights of War

Source: Days of Magic, Nights of War

Happiness, Sadness, Beauty, Fools

“I thinkis man talk for.”

Emma Donoghue Room

Variant: I think buddy is man talk for sweetie.
Source: Room (novel) (2010)

“Inside every fat man, there's a thin man trying to get out.”

Anthony Horowitz book Scorpia Rising

Source: Scorpia Rising

“If the average man is made in God's image, then such a man as Beethoven oris plainly superior to God….”

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

Source: In Defense Of Women

God

“Crow walked toward her, arms outstretched like a man in a dream, which he was, in a way. Sometimes a dream is enough.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Crimson Crown

Dreams, Way

“The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, I've Been to the Mountaintop (1968)
Context: I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, "I can see why Jesus used this as a setting for his parable." It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles, or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road. In the day of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?".

Question, Help

“What well-bred woman would refuse her heart to a man who had just saved her life? Not one; and gratitude is a short cut which speedily leads to love.”

Théophile Gautier book Mademoiselle de Maupin

Source: Mademoiselle de Maupin

Love, Life, Heart, Gratitude

“A strong man who has known power all his life may lose respect for that power. But a weak man knows the value of strength.”

Jeffrey Archer (1940) English author and former politician

Life, Strong

“A woman at a certain age who is unmarried, our society teaches her to see it as a deep personal failure. And a man, after a certain age isn’t married, we just think he hasn’t come around to making his pick.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie We Should All Be Feminists

Source: We Should All Be Feminists

Age, Failure, Thinking, Personality

“Ha!' said the tall man drily. 'He was in high luck. Rich old uncles who die are in shockingly short supply.”

Susanna Clarke book Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Source: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“There is no such thing as bad whiskey. Some whiskeys just happen to be better than others. But a man shouldn’t fool with booze until he’s fifty; then he’s a damn fool if he doesn’t.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Fools

“If the world is ending, a woman will want time to fix her hair. If the world's ending, a woman will take time to to tell a man something he's done wrong.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Matrim Cauthon
(15 October 1994)
Source: The Wheel of time series by Robert Jordan

World, Time

“Nothing a man suffers will prevent him from inflicting suffering on others. Indeed, it will teach him the way”

Barry Unsworth book Sacred Hunger

Source: Sacred Hunger

Way, Suffering

“It is far better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains.”

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

Freedom

“Max Ernst died the 1st of August 1914. He resuscitated the 11th of November 1918 as a young man aspiring to become a magician and to find the myth of his time.”

Max Ernst (1891–1976) German painter, sculptor and graphic artist

Quote in 'Some Data on the Youth of M. E., As Told by Himself' in the w:View (April 1942); also cited in Max Ernst and Alchemy (2001) by M. E. Warlick, p. 17
Max Ernst refers to his serving-period on the Western and then on the Eastern front during World War 1 (1914-1918)
1936 - 1950

Time

“Joking is a barrier between man and the world. Joking is the enemy of love and poetry.”

Milan Kundera book The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Source: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Love, World

“More exists among human beings than can be answered by the simplistic question I'm hit with every day of my life: "Are you a man or a woman?”

Leslie Feinberg (1949–2014) activist and author known for authoring Stone Butch Blues

Life, Question

“He had followed the trail left by a dead man. It was only now that he realized it might lead only to a grave.”

Anthony Horowitz book Stormbreaker

Source: Stormbreaker

Dead

“Modern mass culture, aimed at the "consumer", the civilisation of prosthetics, is crippling people's souls, setting up barriers between man and the crucial questions of his existence, his consciousness of himself as a spiritual being.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 42

People, Soul, Question

“Do you spend time with your family? Good. Because a man that doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.”

Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American screen and stage actor

Family, Time

“What are you?
"A man with a rope?"
"Ha-ha.”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Source: Darkfever

“A censor is an expert in cutting remarks. A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to.”

Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990) Canadian eductor

Thinking

“She remember her granny telling her, 'Men are like coal boilers, Ellie. If you find a man you reckon to keep, you got to feed his belly every day, make him burn for you, then release some steam purty regular, or you ain't ever gonna get him to work.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Lothaire

Men

“Being with a man incapable of telling a lie – a whole lot of awesome. Being with a man who could taste when you lied – sucked the big one.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Wicked Nights

Lie

“Jenks squinted at me, and when Trent nodded, the pixy gestured sourly to Bis to get on with it. A four inch man ruled us all.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Ever After

“We are the Edema Ruh, and the thing we value most every man possesses. You can tell us your story.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

“ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

Clothes

“I couldn't stand the idea of a woman having to have a single pure life and a man being able to have a double life, one pure and one not.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Life, Idea

“No man is an island, entire of itself.”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

Source: No man is an island – A selection from the prose

“Heaven forbid! -- That would be the greatest misfortune of all! -- To find a man agreeable whom one is determined to hate! -- Do not wish me such an evil.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Hate, Evil

“It would require a singularly stupid man to go hang around in narrow tunnels and cramped spaces alongside a threat like that.

"And I, Harry Dresden, am that man," I stated.”

Jim Butcher book Ghost Story

Source: Ghost Story

Stupidity

“Golf… is the infallible test. The man who can go into a patch of rough alone, with the knowledge that only God is watching him, and play his ball where it lies, is the man who will serve you faithfully and well.”

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

God, Knowledge

“Unhappy man! Do you share my maddness? Have you drunk also of the intoxicating draught? Hear me; let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips!”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

“Beware of the man who denounces woman writers; his penis is tiny and he cannot spell.”

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

“If we assume that man actually does resemble God, then we are forced into the impossible theory that God is a coward, an idiot and a bounder.”

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

Variant: If we assume that man actually does resemble God, then we are forced into the impossible theory that God is a coward, an idiot and a bounder.

God

“The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise.”

Isaac Asimov book Second Foundation

Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Second Foundation (1953), Chapter 8 “Seldon’s Plan”

Stupidity

“I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Source: Poems

“I had no shoes and I pitied myself. Then I met a man who had no feet,
so I took his shoes.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Shoe

“A man must be a little mad if he does not want to be even more stupid.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book III, Ch. 9
Essais (1595), Book III

Stupidity, Madness

“Maybe God created the desert so that man could appreciate the date trees”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

God, Tree

“Feast, and your halls are crowded
Fast, and the world goes by
Succeed and give, and it helps you live
But no man can help you die”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet

World, Help

“Thalia blushed. "Hi, Lord Apollo."

Zeus's girl, yes? Makes you my half sister. Used to be a tree, didn't you? Glad you're back. I hate it when pretty girls turn into trees. Man, I remember one time—”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

Hate, Girl, Sister, Tree

“I had done all that I could, and no Man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

“A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Way, Idea

“There is one rule, above all others, for being a man. Whatever comes, face it on your feet.”

Robert Jordan The Great Hunt

al'Lan Mandragoran
(15 November 1990)
Source: The Great Hunt

For Men

“A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

Section 10
The True Believer (1951), Part One: The Appeal of Mass Movements

People, Business

“A man has as many social selves as there are distinct groups of persons about whose opinion he cares. He generally shows a different side of himself to each of these different groups.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Personality

“MARIE I’m saying that the right man for you might be out there right now and if you don’t grab him, someone else will, and you’ll have to spend the rest of your life knowing that someone else is married to your husband.”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

Source: When Harry Met Sally

Life

“The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.”

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

James Legge translation.
Variant translations: The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his actions.
The greater man does not boast of himself, But does what he must do.
A good man does not give orders, but leads by example.
The Analects, Chapter I, Chapter IV

For Men