Quotes about man
page 62

Victor Hugo photo
Bob Dylan photo
Anatole France photo

“The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever.”

Variant: For the majority of people, though they do not know what to do with this life, long for another that shall have no end.
Source: The Revolt of the Angels (1914), Ch. XXI

Anthony Trollope photo
Julia Quinn photo
Patrick Rothfuss photo

“Words have to find a man's mind before they can touch his heart, and some men's minds are woefully small targets.”

Source: Chapter 14, “The Name of the Wind” (p. 113)
Context: Remember this son, if you forget everything else. A poet is a musician who can’t sing. Words have to find a man’s mind before they can touch his heart. And, some men’s minds are woeful small targets. Music touches their hearts directly, no matter how small or stubborn the mind of the man who listens.

Eric Jerome Dickey photo

“can't blame a man for being human when human is all he'll ever be!”

Eric Jerome Dickey (1961) American author

Source: Liar's Game

Anne Rice photo
D.H. Lawrence photo
Adolf Hitler photo

“In a hundred years time, perhaps, a great man will appear who may offer them (the Germans) a chance at salvation. He'll take me as a model, use my ideas, and follow the course I have charted.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

As quoted in “Der Führer als Redner,” Adolf Hitler. Bilder aus dem Leben des Führers" (The Fuhrer as a speaker) by Joseph Goebbels
Other remarks

Benvenuto Cellini photo

“Painting, in fact, is nothing else much than a tree, a man, or any other object, reflected in the water. The distinction between sculpture and painting, is as great as between the shadow and the substance.”

Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571) Florentine sculptor and goldsmith

La Pittura non è altro, che o albero o uomo o altra cosa, che si specchi in un fonte. La differenza, che è dalla Scultura alla Pittura è tanta, quanto è dalla ombra e la cosa, che fa l'ombra.
Letter to Benedetto Varchi, January 28, 1546, cited from G. P. Carpani (ed.) Vita di Benvenuto Cellini (Milano: Nicolo Bettoni, 1821) vol. 3, p. 185; translation from Thomas Nugent (trans.) The Life of Benvenuto Cellini, a Florentine Artist (London: Hunt and Clarke, 1828) vol. 2, p. 265.

Harry Harrison photo
Leslie Stephen photo
Henry David Thoreau photo
Samuel Johnson photo

“Goldsmith, however, was a man who whatever he wrote, did it better than any other man could do.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

1778
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)

Thomas Jefferson photo

“But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Charles Willson Peale (20 August 1811)
1810s

Anthony Burgess photo
Quentin Crisp photo
Maeve Binchy photo
Rockwell Kent photo
Confucius photo
Trent Lott photo

“I want the President to look across the country and find the best man woman or minority that he can find.”

Trent Lott (1941) United States Senator from Mississippi

On Harriet Miers as Supreme Court Justice.
2000s

Anthony Giddens photo

“This situation [alienation] can therefore [according to Durkheim] be remedied by providing the individual with a moral awareness of the social importance of his particular role in the division of labour. He is then no longer an alienated automaton. but is a useful part of an organic whole: ‘from that time, as special and uniform as his activity may be, it is that of an intelligent being, for it has direction, and he is aware of it.’ This is entirely consistent with Durkheim’s general account of the growth of the division of labour, and its relationship to human freedom. It is only through moral acceptance in his particular role in the division of labour that the individual is able to achieve a high degree of autonomy as a self-conscious being, and can escape both the tyranny of rigid moral conformity demanded in undifferentiated societies on the one hand and the tyranny of unrealisable desires on the other.
Not the moral integration of the individual within a differentiated division of labour but the effective dissolution of the division of labour as an organising principle of human social intercourse, is the premise of Marx’s conception. Marx nowhere specifies in detail how this future society would be organised socially, but, at any rate,. this perspective differs decisively from that of Durkheim. The vision of a highly differentiated division of labour integrated upon the basis of moral norms of individual obligation and corporate solidarity. is quite at variance with Marx’s anticipation of the future form of society.
According to Durkheim’s standpoint. the criteria underlying Marx’s hopes for the elimination of technological alienation represent a reversion to moral principles which are no longer appropriate to the modern form of society. This is exactly the problem which Durkheim poses at the opening of The Division of Labour: ‘Is it our duty to seek to become a thorough and complete human being. one quite sufficient unto himself; or, on the contrary, to be only a part of a whole, the organ of an organism?’ The analysis contained in the work, in Durkheim’s view, demonstrates conclusively that organic solidarity is the ‘normal’ type in modern societies, and consequently that the era of the ‘universal man’ is finished. The latter ideal, which predominated up to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in western Europe is incompatible with the diversity of the contemporary order. In preserving this ideal. by contrast. Marx argues the obverse: that the tendencies which are leading to the destruction of capitalism are themselves capable of effecting a recovery of the ‘universal’ properties of man. which are shared by every individual.”

Anthony Giddens (1938) British sociologist

Source: Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971), pp. 230-231.

Wilford Woodruff photo
Anthony Burgess photo

“It is generally felt that the educated man or woman should be able to read Dante, Goethe, Baudelaire, Lorca in the original - with, anyway, the crutch of a translation.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Non-Fiction, A Mouthful of Air: Language and Languages, Especially English (1992)

Johann de Kalb photo

“No! No! Gentlemen, no emotion for me. But, those of congratulation. I am happy. To die is the irreversible decree of him who made us. Then what joy to be able to meet death without dismay. This, thank God, is my case. The happiness of man is my wish, that happiness I deem inconsistent with slavery, and to avert so great an evil from an innocent people, I will gladly meet the British tomorrow, at any odds whatever.”

Johann de Kalb (1721–1780) American general

In August 1780, as quoted in "Death of Baron De Kalb" https://books.google.com/books?id=k2QAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA234&lpg=PA234&dq=%22I+thank+you+sir+for+your+generous+sympathy,+but+I+die+the+death+I+always+prayed+for:+the+death+of+a+soldier+fighting+for+the+rights+of+man%22&source=bl&ots=-93hJzoCYU&sig=tAag8ObQI-ZjiII56viczov02wM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VlYVVcuJI4KmNsazgYgL&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22I%20thank%20you%20sir%20for%20your%20generous%20sympathy%2C%20but%20I%20die%20the%20death%20I%20always%20prayed%20for%3A%20the%20death%20of%20a%20soldier%20fighting%20for%20the%20rights%20of%20man%22&f=false (1849), by Benjamin Franklin Ells, The Western Miscellany, Volume 1, p. 233.
1780s

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) photo
George Santayana photo

“Let a man once overcome his selfish terror at his own finitude, and his finitude is, in one sense, overcome.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

Introduction to The Ethics of Spinoza (1910)

E.E. Cummings photo

“a politician is an arse upon
which everyone has sat except a man”

Source: 1 x 1 (1944), X

George S. Patton photo
Chris Pontius photo

“Steve-O, I don't like the man… he lost!”

Chris Pontius (1974) American actor

[Stilt boxing- Jackass Episodes]

Joseph Addison photo

“Education…is a companion which no misfortunes can depress, no clime destroy, no enemy alienate, no despotism enslave: at home a friend, abroad an introduction, in solitude a solace, in society an ornament: it chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once a grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave, a reasoning savage.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

Though sometimes attributed to Addison, this actually comes from a speech delivered by the Irish lawyer Charles Phillips in 1817, in the case of O'Mullan v. M'Korkill, published in Irish Eloquence: The Speeches of the Celebrated Irish Orators (1834) pp. 91-92.
Misattributed

Meša Selimović photo
Ted Malloch photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Alfred Nobel photo

“The truthful man is usually a liar.”

Alfred Nobel (1833–1896) Swedish chemist, innovator, and armaments manufacturer
Wilson Mizner photo

“That man was so much larger than life that there's no scale by which to measure him. Most of Wilson's dialogue, if put down on paper, seems either vulgar or obscene.”

Wilson Mizner (1876–1933) American writer

Gene Fowler, as quoted by Anita Loos, Kiss Hollywood Goodbye, Viking Press, New York, 1974, ISBN 0-670-41374-7.
About

Edmund Burke photo

“Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure — but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primaeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and the invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place. This law is not subject to the will of those, who by an obligation above them, and infinitely superior, are bound to submit their will to that law. The municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at liberty at their pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent improvement, wholly to separate and tear asunder the bands of their subordinate community, and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil, unconnected chaos of elementary principles. It is the first and supreme necessity only, a necessity that is not chosen, but chooses, a necessity paramount to deliberation, that admits no discussion, and demands no evidence, which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. This necessity is no exception to the rule; because this necessity itself is a part too of that moral and physical disposition of things, to which man must be obedient by consent or force: but if that which is only submission to necessity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken, nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled, from this world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion, and unavailing sorrow.”

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Thomas Carlyle photo
Hillary Clinton photo
Mark Harmon photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“Strength, power, and majesty, belong to man;
They make the glory native to his life;
But sweetness is a woman's attribute —
By that she has reigned, and by that will reign.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The London Literary Gazette (24th January 1835) Versions from the German (Fourth Series.) 'The Empire of Woman' — Schiller.
Translations, From the German

Democritus photo

“If any one hearken with understanding to these sayings of mine many a deed worthy of a good man shall he perform and many a foolish deed be spared.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Golden Sayings of Democritus

“Communism further alleges that religion is not of divine origin but is simply a man-made tool used by the dominant class to suppress the exploited class. Marx and Engels described religion as the opiate of the people which is designed to lull them into humble submission and an acceptance of the prevailing mode of production which the dominant class desires to perpetuate. Any student of history would agree that there have been times in history when unscrupulous individuals and even misdirected religious organizations have abused the power of religion, just as all other institutions of society have been abused at various times. But it was not the abuse of religion which Marx and Engels deplored as much as the very existence of religion. They considered it a creation of the dominant class, a tool and a weapon in the hands of the oppressors. They pointed out the three-fold function of religion from their point of view: first, it teaches respect for property rights; second, it teaches the poor their duties towards the property and prerogatives of the ruling class; and third, it instills a spirit of acquiescence among the exploited poor so as to destroy their revolutionary spirit. The fallacy of these allegations is obvious to any student of Judaic-Christian teachings. The Biblical teaching of respect for property applies to rich and poor alike; it admonishes the rich to give the laborer his proper wages and to share their riches with the needy.”

The Naked Communist (1958)

Sri Aurobindo photo
Italo Svevo photo

“When a man dies, he has too many other worries to allow any thinking about death.”

Quando si muore si ha ben altro da fare che di pensare alla morte.
Source: La coscienza di Zeno (1923), P. 45; p. 55.

Arthur Cecil Pigou photo
Nikos Kazantzakis photo
Wilt Chamberlain photo
Ulysses S. Grant photo

“It is to be hoped that such legislation may be another step toward the great consummation to be reached, when no man shall be permitted, directly or indirectly, under any guise, excuse, or form of law, to hold his fellow-man in bondage. I am of opinion also that it is the duty of the United States, as contributing toward that end, and required by the spirit of the age in which we live, to provide by suitable legislation that no citizen of the United States shall hold slaves as property in any other country or be interested therein.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

1870s, Seventh State of the Union Address (1875)
Context: I am happy to announce the passage of an act by the General Cortes of Portugal, proclaimed since the adjournment of Congress, for the abolition of servitude in the Portuguese colonies. It is to be hoped that such legislation may be another step toward the great consummation to be reached, when no man shall be permitted, directly or indirectly, under any guise, excuse, or form of law, to hold his fellow-man in bondage. I am of opinion also that it is the duty of the United States, as contributing toward that end, and required by the spirit of the age in which we live, to provide by suitable legislation that no citizen of the United States shall hold slaves as property in any other country or be interested therein.

Julien Offray de La Mettrie photo
Ben Croshaw photo
G. K. Chesterton photo
William H. Gass photo
Michel De Montaigne photo
Pearl S.  Buck photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
Joss Stone photo

“I was born a vegetarian. … I feel there is no need to cause another living thing pain or harm. There are so many other things we can eat. I have never eaten meat in my life, and I’m 5 foot 10 and not exactly wasting away. A wise man once said, ‘Animals are my friends, and I’m not in the habit of eating my friends.’ That is exactly how I feel.”

Joss Stone (1987) English singer and actress

Reported in "Introducing Joss Stone’s Vegetarian PSA", in peta2.com (13 March 2007) http://www.peta2.com/heroes/introducing-joss-stone-vegetarian-psa/. Also quoted in "Soul diva Stone in veggie ad", in Mirror.co.uk (15 March 2007) http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/soul-diva-stone-in-veggie-ad-458507.

Annie Besant photo

“Man, according to the Theosophical teaching, is a sevenfold being, or, in the usual phrase a septenary constitution. Putting it yet in another way, man's nature has seven aspects, may be studied from seven different points of view, is composed of Seven Principles.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

The Seven Principles of Man http://books.google.co.in/books?id=tgEM1XiI74kC&printsec=frontcover, p. 6

Hugo Diemer photo
David Bowie photo

“(Hey man) oh leave me alone you know
(Hey man) oh Henry, get off the phone, I gotta
(Hey man) I gotta straighten my face
This mellow thighed chick just put my spine out of place.”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

Suffragette City
Song lyrics, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)

Euripidés photo
George Washington Plunkitt photo
Arthur Schopenhauer photo
Paul Erdős photo

“The first sign of senility is that a man forgets his theorems, the second sign is that he forgets to zip up, the third sign is that he forgets to zip down.”

Paul Erdős (1913–1996) Hungarian mathematician and freelancer

Though Erdős used this remark, it is said to have originated with his friend Stanisław Ulam, as reported in The Man Who Loved Only Numbers : The Story of Paul Erdős and the Search for Mathematical Truth (1998) by Paul Hoffman
Variants:
The first sign of senility is when a man forgets his theorems. The second sign is when he forgets to zip up. The third sign is when he forgets to zip down.
As quoted in Wonders of Numbers : Adventures in Mathematics, Mind, and Meaning (2002) by Clifford A. Pickover, p. 64
There are three signs of senility. The first sign is that a man forgets his theorems. The second sign is that he forgets to zip up. The third sign is that he forgets to zip down.
Misattributed

Théodore Rousseau photo

“What has art to do with those things [Revolution, socialism]? Art will never come except from some little disregarded corner where some isolated man is studying the mysteries of nature, fully assured that the answer which he finds and which is good for him is good also for humanity, whatever may be the number of succeeding generations.”

Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867) French painter (1812-1867)

as quoted by Romain Rolland in his book Millet, c. 1900; transl. Miss Clementina Black; published by Duckworth & Co, Londo / E. P. Dutton & Co, New York, 1919, p. 8
undated quotes

Marilyn Monroe photo

“The studio people want me to do "Good-bye Charlie" for the movies, but I'm not going to do it. I don't like the idea of playing a man in a woman's body — you know? It just doesn't seem feminine.”

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

On turning down a role, eventually played by Debbie Reynolds, as quoted in Ms. magazine (August 1972) p. 41

Denis Diderot photo
Joseph Addison photo

“Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man.”

Act V, scene iv.
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

P.G. Wodehouse photo
Walter de la Mare photo
Fenton Johnson photo
Jean-Louis de Lolme photo

“The truly civilized man has no enemies.”

Charles Fletcher Dole (1845–1927) Unitarian minister, speaker, and writer

The Smoke and the Flame: A Study in the Development of Religion (1902).

John Buchan photo
Nile Kinnick photo
Leigh Brackett photo

“The man who doesn’t fear, doesn’t live long. I fear everything.”

Leigh Brackett (1915–1978) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: The Ginger Star (1974), Chapter 5 (p. 32)

Finley Peter Dunne photo
Gottfried von Straßburg photo

“A worthy man is bound to suffer malice and envy: a man grows in worth so long as he is envied.”

Hazzen unde nîden
daz muoz der biderbe lîden.
der man der werdet al die vrist,
die wîle und er geniten ist.
Source: Tristan, Line 8395

“Nietzsche [claims] that the scientist is at best an instrument, a useful slave: he does not command or decide, he is not a whole man.”

John Carroll (1944) Australian professor and author

Source: Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974), p. 111

Edouard Manet photo

“Get it down quickly, don't worry about the background. Just go for the tonal values. You see? When you look at it, and above all when you see how to render it as you see it, thats is, in such a way that its make the same impression on the viewer as it does on you, you don't look for, you don't see the lines on the paper over there, do you? And then, when you look at the whole thing you don't try to count the scales on the salmon, of course you don't. You see them as little silver pearls against grey and pink – isn't thats right? – look at the pink of the salmon, with the bone appearing white in the centre and then grays, like the shades of mother of pearl. And the grapes, now do you count each? No, of course not. What strikes you is their clear, amber colour and the bloom which models the form by softening it. What you have to decide with the cloth is where the highlights come and then the planes which are not in the direct light. Halftones are for the magasin pittoresque engravers. The folds will come by themselves if you put them in the proper place. Ah! M. Ingres, there's the man! We're all just children. There's the one who knew how to paint materials! Ask Bracquemond [Paris' artist and print-maker]. Above all, keep your colours fresh. [instructing his new protegee, the Spanish young woman-painter Eva Gonzales, circa 1869]”

Edouard Manet (1832–1883) French painter

Manet, recorded by Philippe Burty, as cited in Manet by Himself, ed. Juliet Wilson-Bareau, Little Brown 2000, London; p. 52
1850 - 1875

Timothy McVeigh photo
Albert Mackey photo
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo
Robin Lane Fox photo

“No man, and only one hero, had been called invincible before him, and then only by a poet, but the hero was Heracles, ancestor of the Macedonian kings.”

Robin Lane Fox (1946) Historian, educator, writer, gardener

Source: Alexander the Great, 1973, p.71

Georg Brandes photo
George Bernard Shaw photo