Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher
Source: The World as Will and Representation, Vol 1
Quotes about man page 60
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851) English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer
28 April 1778, p. 659 http://books.google.com/books?id=yYphdZ0abhUC&q=&quot;One+of+the+disadvantages+of+wine+it+makes+a+man+mistake+words+for+thoughts&quot;&pg=PA659#v=onepage <br class="br">Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II <br class="br">Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. Vol 2
James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish novelist and poet
Letter to Augusta Gregory (22 November 1902), from James Joyce by Richard Ellmann (1959) [Oxford University Press, 1983 edition, <small> ISBN 0-195-03381-7</small>] (p. 107)
“Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.”
Henry David Thoreau book Civil Disobedience
Source: Civil Disobedience (1849)
“That was all a man needed: hope. It was a lack of hope that discouraged a man.”
Charles Bukowski book Factotum
Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 29
Context: That was all a man needed: hope. It was a lack of hope that discouraged a man. I remembered my New Orleans days, living on two five-cent candy bars a day for weeks at a time in order to have leisure to write. But starvation, unfortunately, didn't improve art. It only hindered it. A man's soul was rooted in his stomach. A man could write much better after eating a porterhouse steak and drinking a pint of whiskey than he could ever write after eating a nickel candy bar. The myth of the starving artist was a hoax.
“You can always tell how a man will treat his wife by the way he treats his mother.”
Janette Rallison (1966) American writer
Source: How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-Boyfriend
“When a man writes a romance, the woman dies. When a woman writes one, it ends all tidy and sweet.”
Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist
Source: What Happens in London
“God give me anything but a good man's pity.”
Kresley Cole American writer
Source: Kiss of a Demon King
Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher
Source: The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism
Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer
Source: Devil in Winter
“Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.”
Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor
“Such is the life of a man. Moments of joy, obliterated by unforgettable sorrow.”
Marcel Pagnol (1895–1974) novelist, playwright and filmmaker from France
Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer
Source: Marrying Winterborne
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer
323
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)
Source: Minority Report
“Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.”
Francis Bacon book Essays
Of Studies
Essays (1625)
“A wrongdoer is often a man who has left something undone, not always one who has done something.”
Marcus Aurelius book Meditations
Ἀδικεῖ πολλάκις ὁ μὴ ποιῶν τι, οὐ μόνον ὁ ποιῶν τι.
IX, 5
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IX
“After all, it's woman, who decide, if a man is desirable or undesirable.”
Candace Bushnell book Sex and the City
Source: Sex and the City
“Whether a man is a criminal or a public servant is purely a matter of perspective.”
Tom Robbins book Another Roadside Attraction
Source: Another Roadside Attraction (1971)
Fannie Flagg book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Source: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
“I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused.”
Graham Greene book The Quiet American
Source: The Quiet American
Adriana Trigiani (1970) American film director
Source: The Shoemaker's Wife
“… a man's plans are meant to be changed for a beautiful woman.”
Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer
Source: Genuine Lies
Christine Feehan book Conspiracy Game
Source: Conspiracy Game
“Seduction is merely encouraging a man to do something he already wants to do.”
Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer
Source: Tempt Me at Twilight
“Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.”
Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher
David Gemmell (1948–2006) British author of heroic fantasy
Source: Lord of the Silver Bow
John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer
Journal entry (1938), quoted in the Introduction to a 1994 edition of Of Mice and Men by Susan Shillinglaw, p. vii
Context: In every bit of honest writing in the world … there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love. There are shorter means, many of them. There is writing promoting social change, writing punishing injustice, writing in celebration of heroism, but always that base theme. Try to understand each other.
“You been down to the bottom with a bad man, babe
But you're back were you belong”
Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1960s, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1964)
Context: Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time — the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression. Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts… Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
“It's terrible, once you've got a man into your blood!" she said.”
D.H. Lawrence book Lady Chatterley's Lover
Source: Lady Chatterley's Lover
“The wise man tests before he talks. The critic but follows the fad of a cynical and apathetic age.”
L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow book The Song of Hiawatha
Pt. X, Hiawatha's Wooing, st. 1.
The Song of Hiawatha (1855)
Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor
Source: Open Heart
“A woman unsatisfied must have luxuries. But a woman who loves a man would sleep on a board”
D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter
“What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.”
Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
“Man is fallible, but maybe men are less so.”
Atul Gawande book The Checklist Manifesto
Source: The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer
Journal entry (November 1951) as published in the Kerouac ROMnibus http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ctitext2/resguide/resources/j100.html
Steven Pressfield (1943) United States Marine
Source: The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great
“The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.”
Wole Soyinka (1934) Nigerian writer
The Man Died (New York: Harper & Row, 1972) p. 13.
“You are a lucky lady to be marrying a man who can fix things. Most husbands just break things.”
Alexander McCall Smith book Morality for Beautiful Girls
Source: Morality for Beautiful Girls
“Where is that man who has forgotten words that I may have a word with him?”
Zhuangzi (-369–-286 BC) classic Chinese philosopher
Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer
Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense
Jennifer Ashley (1974) American author
Source: Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage
“I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.”
Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter
Source: The Very Best of Johnny Cash
“I am constantly amazed by man's inhumanity to man.”
Primo Levi book If This Is a Man
Source: If This Is a Man / The Truce
“He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet
Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 2
“You're the kind of man my mother warned me about.”
Christine Feehan book Dark Prince
Source: Dark Prince
“A man was defined not by his flaws, but by how he overcame them.”
Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer
Source: The Well of Ascension
Diana Norman (1933–2011) British author and journalist
Source: The Serpent's Tale
“There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright
