“Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.”
Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher
Section 241
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
Source: The Passionate State of Mind: And Other Aphorisms
Quotes about man page 54
“A man who casts no shadow isn't really a man at all.”
Joanne Harris book The Lollipop Shoes
Source: The Lollipop Shoes
“Man has to suffer. When he has no real afflictions, he invents some.”
José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader
“No man of any intelligence would pretend to know a female mind.”
Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist
Source: When He Was Wicked
“In an ugly and unhappy world the richest man can purchase nothing but ugliness and unhappiness.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright
#110
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)
Nelson Algren book A Walk on the Wild Side
In jail, Cross-Country Kline to Dove Linkhorn.
Source: A Walk on the Wild Side (1956)
Context: But blow wise to this, buddy, blow wise to this: Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own. Never let nobody talk you into shaking another man's jolt. And never you cop another man's plea. I've tried 'em all and I know. They don't work. / Life is hard by the yard, son. But you don't have to do it by the yard. By the inch it's a cinch. And money can't buy everything. For example: poverty.
“Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.”
Anthony Burgess book A Clockwork Orange
Variant: When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.
Source: A Clockwork Orange
Bram Stoker (1847–1912) Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula
Source: The New Annotated Dracula
Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer
Source: Sugar Daddy
“A man in debt is so far a slave.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist
Source: The Wisdom of the Heart (1951), "The Alcoholic Veteran with the Washboard Cranium", p. 122
Benjamin Rush (1745–1813) American physician, educator, author
Source: A Memorial Containing Travels Through Life or Sundry Incidents in the Life of Dr Benjamin Rush
Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) English crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer
Source: Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society
Danielle Steel (1947) American author of romance novels
“If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.”
Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…
“Philokleon: Let each man exercise the art he knows.”
Aristophanés (-448–-386 BC) Athenian playwright of Old Comedy
tr. Rogers 1909, p. 110 http://books.google.com/books?id=vptfAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Let+each+man+exercise+the+art+he+knows%22 <br class="br">Anonymous ancient proverb, quoted by Aristophanes in Wasps, line 1431 <br class="br">Also later found in Plato (Republic 4.423d, 4.433a-d) and Cicero (Tusc. I.18.41) <br class="br">Misattributed
John Steinbeck book The Pearl
Source: The Pearl (1947), Ch. V
Context: He had said, "I am a man," and that meant certain things to Juana. It meant that he was half insane and half god. It meant that Kino would drive his strength against a mountain and plunge his strength against the sea. Juana, in her woman's soul, knew that the mountain would stand while the man broke himself; that the sea would surge while the man drowned in it. And yet it was this thing that made him a man, half insane and half god, and Juana had need of a man; she could not live without a man. Although she might be puzzled by these differences between man and woman, she knew them and accepted them and needed them. Of course she would follow him, there was no question of that. Sometimes the quality of woman, the reason, the caution, the sense of preservation, could cut through Kino's manness and save them all.
“He sounded like a man who had slept well and didn't owe too much money.”
Raymond Chandler book The Big Sleep
Source: The Big Sleep
“When a man or woman is truly honest, it is virtually impossible to insult them personally.”
Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America
1963, Speech at Amherst College
Context: When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.
Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910–1997) French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and …
“A man who has a language consequently possesses the world expressed and implied by that language.”
Frantz Fanon book Black Skin, White Masks
Source: Black Skin, White Masks
“The desire for knowledge shapes a man.”
Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear
Source: The Wise Man's Fear
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
“A man's immortality can be found in his children.”
Patricia Briggs (1965) American writer
Source: Raven's Shadow
Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician
Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois
Walden (1854)
Context: A living dog is better than a dead lion. Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made. Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.<!--pp.366-367
“No wise man ever wished to be younger.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet
Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)
George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer
Preface.
Language and Silence: Essays 1958-1966 (1967)
Context: We come after. We know now that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day's work at Auschwitz in the morning. To say that he has read them without understanding or that his ear is gross, is cant. In what way does this knowledge bear on literature and society, on the hope, grown almost axiomatic from the time of Plato to that of Matthew Arnold, that culture is a humanizing force, that the energies of spirit are transferable to those of conduct?
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist
As quoted in Bisexual Characters in Film: From Anaïs to Zee (1997) by Wayne M. Bryant, p. 143
Attributed
Yukio Mishima book Confessions of a Mask
Source: Confessions of a Mask (1949), p. 208.
Context: I received an impassioned letter from Sonoko. There was no doubt that she was truly in love. I felt jealous. Mine was the unbearable jealousy a cultured pearl must feel toward a genuine one. Or can there be such a thing in this world as a man who is jealous of the woman who loves him, precisely because of her love?
“A man's weaknesses may intrude on his faith but they do not diminish it.”
Robert Ludlum book The Bourne Ultimatum
Source: The Bourne Ultimatum
“You foolish man. Of course there's love. Don't you know? I love you.”
Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer
Source: Kiss an Angel
“Now I know I've got a heart because it is breaking.
- Tin Man”
L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Source: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
“It is man's consolation that the future is to be a sunrise instead of a sunset.”
Victor Hugo book Les Misérables
Que l'avenir soit un orient au lieu d'être un couchant, c'est la consolation de l'homme.
Part I, Book II, Chapter II, Section V
William Shakespeare (1864)
Source: Les Misérables
Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer
Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
“Oh, come on," Clary said. "You're a vampire, not Spider-Man.”
Cassandra Clare book City of Glass
Source: City of Glass
“You know,” Cecily said, “you really didn’t have to throw that man through the window.”
Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess
Source: Clockwork Princess
“To hell with the future. It's a man-eating idol.”
Ivan Illich (1926–2002) austrian philosopher and theologist
“Money problems can always be solved by a man not frightened by them.”
Robert A. Heinlein book Have Space Suit—Will Travel
Source: Have Space Suit—Will Travel
“You are a cynical man, Mr. Pleasant."
"We live in cynical times, Miss Cain.”
Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer
Source: Death Bringer
“A man screaming is not a dancing bear. Life is not a spectacle.”
Aimé Césaire (1913–2008) Martiniquais politician
Source: Notebook of a Return to the Native Land
“Man, they got mosquitoes 'round this place big enough to rape a chicken.”
Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love
Source: Eat, Pray, Love
“A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright
James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright
"The Trouble with Man is Man", The New Yorker; reprinted in Lanterns & Lances (1961).
From Lanterns and Lances