Quotes about man
page 57

“I am not a very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you have given me credit for being.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Thinking

“A person’s never too old for stories. Man and boy, girl and woman, we live for them. - Roland Deschain”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: The Wind Through the Keyhole

Girl, Boy, Personality

“There is nothing more mysterious than a TV set left on in an empty room. It is even stranger than a man talking to himself or a woman standing dreaming at her stove. It is as if another planet is communicating with you.”

Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French sociologist and philosopher

Source: America

Dreams, Communication

“Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

September 19, 1777, p. 351, often misquoted as being hanged in the morning.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. Vol 3

Dependency

“If the statue engulfs people in fire, we should send Leo.’
‘I love you too, man.’
‘You know what I mean. You’re immune. Or, heck, give me some of those nice water grenades and I’ll go. Ares and I have tangled before.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Love, People, Water

“Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests and mines and stone-quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.”

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

1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Quotation and Originality
Source: Prose and Poetry

Books, Housing

“A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Adventures of Sally

Source: The Adventures of Sally (1922)

Life, Parting

“A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

Love, Loyalty

“A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.”

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

“Loving a man shouldn't have to be this rough”

Tim McGraw (1967) American country singer

Love

“Of course she'd told him she would, but if the man hadn't registered her sarcasm, then he wasn't making full use of his ears.”

Mary Connealy (1956) Author

Source: Petticoat Ranch

“Here was a new generation, shouting the old cries, learning the old creeds, through a revery of long days and nights; destined finally to go out into that dirty gray turmoil to follow love and pride; a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken....”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Quoted, This Side of Paradise (1920)

Love, God, War, Fear

“Man cannot become attached to higher aims and submit to a rule if he sees nothing above him to which he belongs. To free him from all social pressure is to abandon him to himself and demoralize him.”

Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) French sociologist (1858-1917)

Source: On Suicide: A Study in Sociology

“The function of man is to live, not to exist.”

Jack London (1876–1916) American author, journalist, and social activist

Variant: The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.

For Men

“The thing that's between us is fascination, and the fascination resides in our being alike. Whether you're a man or a woman, the fascination resides in finding out that we're alike.”

Marguerite Duras (1914–1996) French writer and film director

“Leave it to a man to mess things up”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Between the Lines

“It is the oldest ironies that are still the most satisfying: man, when preparing for bloody war, will orate loudly and most eloquently in the name of peace.”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

War, Peace

“Untilled ground, however rich, will bring forth thistles and thorns; so also the mind of man.”

Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) Roman Catholic saint

“Scenes of blood and cruelty are shocking to our ear and heart. What man has nerve to do, man has not nerve to hear.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Source: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Heart

“An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Fools, Intelligence, Time

“Illness reduces man to his basic state: a cloaca in which the chemical processes continue. The meaningless hegemony of the involuntary.”

Paul Bowles book The Sheltering Sky

Source: The Sheltering Sky

“The man of wisdom is never of two minds;
the man of benevolence never worries;
the man of courage is never afraid.”

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

Wisdom, Courage

“Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French. One of the things which Gertrude Butterwick had impressed on Monty Bodkin when he left for his holiday on the Riviera was that he must be sure to practise his French, and Gertrude’s word was law. So now, though he knew that it was going to make his nose tickle, he said:
‘Er, garçon.’
‘M’sieur?’
‘Er, garçon, esker-vous avez un spot de l’encre et une piece de papier—note papier, vous savez—et une envelope et une plume.’
The strain was too great. Monty relapsed into his native tongue.
‘I want to write a letter,’ he said. And having, like all lovers, rather a tendency to share his romance with the world, he would probably have added ‘to the sweetest girl on earth’, had not the waiter already bounded off like a retriever, to return a few moments later with the fixings.
‘V’la, sir! Zere you are, sir,’ said the waiter. He was engaged to a girl in Paris who had told him that when on the Riviera he must be sure to practise his English. ‘Eenk—pin—pipper—enveloppe—and a liddle bit of bloddin-pipper.’
‘Oh, merci,’ said Monty, well pleased at this efficiency. ‘Thanks. Right-ho.’
‘Right-ho, m’sieur,’ said the waiter.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Luck of the Bodkins

Source: The Luck of the Bodkins (1935)

World, Law, Girl, Lovers

“A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Understanding, Thinking

“Punch a man on the nose, kick an old man downstairs, shoot somebody or any old thing like that, that’s my job. But argue with women in love—no thank you!”

Mikhail Bulgakov book The Master and Margarita

Source: The Master and Margarita

Love, Women

“But you must give him some sign, some sign that you love him… or he'll never be a man. All his life he'll feel guilty and alone unless you release him.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

Love, Life, Feeling

“The main trouble with being an honest man was that it lost you all your illusions.”

James Jones book From Here to Eternity

Source: From Here to Eternity

“If a man knows precisely what he can do to you or what epithet he can hurl against you in order to make you lose your temper, your equilibrium, then he can always keep you under subjection.”

Howard Thurman book Jesus and the Disinherited

Source: Jesus and the Disinherited

“The man is happiest who lives from day to day and asks no more, garnering the simple goodness of life.”

Euripidés (-480–-406 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

Life

“We give all we have, lives, property, safety, skill… we fight, we die, for a simple thing. Only that a man can stand up.”

Esther Forbes book Johnny Tremain

Source: Johnny Tremain

Fight

“A man could get used to anything if he had to.”

Richard Matheson (1926–2013) American fiction writer

Source: I Am Legend and Other Stories

“A man who is used to acting in one way never changes; he must come to ruin when the times, in changing, no longer are in harmony with his ways.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince

Way, Change, Time

“Everything is valuable under the right conditions. To a man dying of thirst, water be more precious than gold. To a drowning man, water be of little worth and great trouble.”

Terry Goodkind book Wizard's First Rule

Source: Wizard's First Rule

Water

“Man's memory shapes
Its own Eden within”

Jorge Luis Borges Dreamtigers

Source: Dreamtigers

Memory

“I'm an old man, and she's gone now. So don't worry, okay?”

Rebecca Stead book When You Reach Me

Source: When You Reach Me

“No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Heart

“Never question another man's motive. His wisdom, yes, but not his motives.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Wisdom, Motivation, Question

“Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired…”

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

Letter to a Young Clergyman (January 9, 1720), on proving Christianity to unbelievers

“We know enough at this moment to say that the God of Abraham is not only unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

God

“The universe did not invent justice. Man did. Unfortunately, man must reside in the universe.”

Roger Zelazny book The Dream Master

He Who Shapes (1965)
Source: The Dream Master

Justice, Universe

“Good tuna-fish sandwiches; he’s the tallest man I’ve ever seen! (Pam)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Fish

“She understood his eyes, colder than winter's heart. A man who knew he was dead and couldn't make himself care; you are spared that. Mashiara. His lost love.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Love, Winter, Heart, Dead

“The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man”

José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist

“He should be careful. It's dangerous to be an honest man.”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Source: The Godfather

“The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold, (1802)
The last three lines of this form the introductory lines of the long Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood begun the next day.
Context: My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

Nature

“No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: The Woman in White

“A man does not recover from such devotion of the heart to such a woman! He ought not; he does not.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Source: Persuasion

Heart

“Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.”

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

1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)

“You're the only man I know who can have sex with a woman who looks that good and be in this bad a mood ten minutes later. Damn, didn't you know sex is supposed to make you feel better? (Nick)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Night Pleasures

Source: Night Pleasures

Sex, Feeling, Mood

“Good and great are seldom in the same man.”

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

“There's nothing so attractive as a blank slate. Take one attractive man, slap on a thick coat of daydream, and voila, the perfect man. With absolutely no resemblance to reality.”

Lauren Willig (1977) American author

Source: The Deception of the Emerald Ring

Reality, Perfection

“Only yesterday a young woman came to me wanting a trap set for a man with a sweet smile and lithe arms. She was a fool, not for wanting him, but for wanting more of him than that.”

Patricia A. McKillip (1948) American fantasy writer

Smile, Fools

“A woman must be nursed into subsistence by love, where a man can become stronger by being hated." - from 'Cows in Art Class”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Love, Hate, Art

“Critical and radical thought will only bear fruit when it is blended with the most precious quality man is endowed with - the love of life”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Source: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness

Love, Life

“You must learn to forgive a man when he's in love. He's always a nuisance.”

Rudyard Kipling book The Light That Failed

Source: The Light That Failed

Love, Forgiveness, Learning

“The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.”

B.F. Skinner (1904–1990) American behaviorist

Contingencies of Reinforcement: A Theoretical Analysis (1969).
Source: Contingencies Of Reinforcement: A Theoretical Analysis

Men, Question, Thinking

“When a man wears his pants that tight, they tend to pinch his balls, and that tends to pinch his temper.”

Anne Bishop (1955) American fiction writer

Source: Queen of the Darkness

“But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

World, Way

“Man is what he reads.”

Joseph Brodsky (1940–1996) Russian and American poet and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate

Reading

“But a man is not forgotten, as long as there are two people left under the sky. One, to tell the story; the other, to hear it.”

Diana Gabaldon book Drums of Autumn

Source: Drums of Autumn

People

“Lucky is the man who does not secretly believe that every possibility is open to him.”

Walker Percy (1916–1990) Southern philosophical novelist

“Ultimately a hero is a man who would argue with the gods, and so awakens devils to contest his vision.”

Norman Mailer book The Presidential Papers

Preface
The Presidential Papers (1963)
Context: Ultimately a hero is a man who would argue with the gods, and so awakens devils to contest his vision. The more a man can achieve, the more he may be certain that the devil will inhabit a part of his creation.

God

“The superior man is satisfied and composed; the mean man is always full of distress.”

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

The virtuous is frank and open; the non-virtuous is secretive and worrying. [by 朱冀平]
Source: The Analects, Other chapters

“Knock her dead, my man."
"Oh no." Xcor shook his head."That shan't be necessary. This one I like.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: The King

Dead

“Man who betrayed you once would betray you twice.”

Ken Follett (1949) British novelist

“Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window, and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22 (1961)
Context: Yossarian was cold, too, and shivering uncontrollably.... It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all.

Secret

“One should never marry a man who doesn’t own a decent set of scissors. That would be my advice. It leads to bad things.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

“The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.”

Iris Murdoch book The Red and the Green

Source: The Red and the Green

Heart

“A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

“The real test of a man is not how well he plays the role he has invented for himself, but how well he plays the role that destiny assigned to him.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 2 : Writing for the Stage, p. 72

“We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities… still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.”

Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

volume II, chapter XXI: "General Summary and Conclusion", page 405 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=422&itemID=F937.2&viewtype=image<br>(Closing paragraph of the book.) <br class="br">The Descent of Man (1871) <br class="br">Context: Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future. But we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason allows us to discover it. I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system — with all these exalted powers — Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.

“Only in today's sick society can a man be persecuted for reading too many books.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

Books, Reading

“How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

Rage

“How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself.”

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

Source: Marilyn: Her Life In Own Words

World, For women

“She was a ghost in a strange house that overnight had become immense and solitary and through which she wandered without purpose, asking herself in anguish which one of them was deader: the man who had died or the woman he had left behind.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Housing

“One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

The Tables Turned, st. 6 (1798).
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800)

Evil

“I deserve passion," she said. "I deserve to be loved- in every way. I deserve a man who'll give his whole heart, not the part he isn't using at the moment..”

Loretta Chase (1949) American writer

Source: Silk Is for Seduction

Love, Way, Passion, Heart

“It is what a man does for strangers that counts more than what he does for his family.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Quintana of Charyn

Family

“In order to deal with reality successfully - to pursue and achieve the values which his life requires - man needs self-esteem; he needs to be confident of his efficacy and worth.”

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

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

Life, Confidence, Reality

“Oh, I forgot to mention it: My brother is the kind of man whom women stalk. In cooperative packs.”

Jim Butcher book Cold Days

Source: Cold Days

Women

“The real Tragedy is the tragedy of the man who never in his life braces himself for his one supreme effort-he never stretches to his full capacity, never stands up to his full stature.”

Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) English novelist

Life, Effort

“The man who has begun to live more seriously within begins to live more simply without”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

“Greatness is a property for which no man can receive credit too soon; it must be possessed long before it is acknowledged.”

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

Source: Self Reliance

“A man is only as old as the woman he feels.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Feeling

“Never run after a man or a bus, there's always another one in five minutes.”

Cherry Adair (1951) South African-American writer

Source: Kiss and Tell

“Yeah, well, I’ll be glad to birth it if it means I can name him something normal. (Zarek)
Yeah, yeah. This from a man who whines like a two-year-old when he stubs his toe. I’d like to see you survive ten hours of childbirth. (Astrid)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dream Warrior

Birth

“A writer once said that it is not time that changes man, nor knowledge; the only thing that can change someone's mind is love. What nonsense! The person who wrote that clearly knew only one side of the coin.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Love, Knowledge, Change, Time

“For the deeds of a man, not the words of a prophecy, are what shape his destiny.”

Lloyd Alexander book The High King

Source: The High King

“It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.”

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

Source: My Early Life: A Roving Commission (1930), Chapter 9 (Education At Bangalore).

Books, Study, Memory, Reading

“I'd much rather be a woman than a man. Women can cry, they can wear cute clothes, and they are the first to be rescued off of sinking ships.”

Gilda Radner (1946–1989) American comedian

Women, Cry, Clothes, Cute

“Discipleship is not an offer that man makes to Christ.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer book The Cost of Discipleship

Source: The Cost of Discipleship

Christ

“That's a lovely piece," Kat said, pointing at a Louise XV armoire near the fireplace.
The man raised his eyebrows. "Did you come to steal it?"
"Darn it," Kat said with a snap of her fingers."I knew I should have brought my big purse.”

Ally Carter book Heist Society

Source: Heist Society

Love

“You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

Love, Death, Loyalty

“Beware the fury of a patient man.”

John Dryden Absalom and Achitophel

Pt. I, line 999–1005. Compare Publius Syrus, Maxim 289, "Furor fit læsa sæpius patientia" ("An over-taxed patience gives way to fierce anger").
Absalom and Achitophel (1681)
Variant: Beware the Fury of a Patient Man.
Context: Oh that my Pow'r to Saving were confin’d:
Why am I forc’d, like Heav’n, against my mind,
To make Examples of another Kind?
Must I at length the Sword of Justice draw?
Oh curst Effects of necessary Law!
How ill my Fear they by my Mercy scan,
Beware the Fury of a Patient Man.