Quotes about man (10000 quotes, page 86)

“He would milk the white man…. The white man had more money than sense.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, The Enemy in the Blanket (1958)

Money , Sense

“We were conscious of a great sense of excitement about the plan. Marshall himself was a great, great man — funny, odd but great — Olympian in his moral quality. We'd stay up all night, night after night. The first work ever done that I know about in economics on computers used the Pentagon's computers at night for the Marshall Plan. I had a tremendous sense of gratification from working so hard on it.”

Charles P. Kindleberger (1910–2003) American economic historian

On his involvement in development of the Marshall Plan, as quoted in "MIT Professor Kindleberger dies at 92", in MIT News (7 July 2003) http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2003/kindleberger

Sense , Night

“The better a man is, the more mistakes will he make - for the more new things he will try. I would never promote a man into a top level job who had not made mistakes, and big ones at that. Otherwise he is sure to be mediocre.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1930s- 1950s, The Practice of Management (1954), p. 147

“I tell you, in the first instance, that Ireland is an enslaved country. A great mistake is entertained by many persons to the effect that there cannot be slavery—that no man can be a slave unless he be in chains, or subject to the lash of the planter like the negroes; but the slavery of which I speak is the slavery of the people, which consists in this, that they do not make their own laws themselves—that they do not make the laws by which they are governed, but that those laws are made by others, and I say it boldly, that a people so circumstanced are in a state of slavery.”

Robert Holmes (1765–1859) Irish writer

Speech (1848-05-20) in the case of John Mitchel, Young Irelander and one of the Irish Confederation Leaders. Mitchel was later sentenced to fourteen years transportation.

People , Law , Personality , Country

“As to the word itself, it is generally allowed to be of Greek extraction. But whence the Greek word, enthousiasmos, is derived, none has yet been able to show. Some have endeavoured to derive it from en theoi, in God; because all enthusiasm has reference to him. … It is not improbable, that one reason why this uncouth word has been retained in so many languages was, because men were not better agreed concerning the meaning than concerning the derivation of it. They therefore adopted the Greek word, because they did not understand it: they did not translate it into their own tongues, because they knew not how to translate it; it having been always a word of a loose, uncertain sense, to which no determinate meaning was affixed.
It is not, therefore, at all surprising, that it is so variously taken at this day; different persons understanding it in different senses, quite inconsistent with each other. Some take it in a good sense, for a divine impulse or impression, superior to all the natural faculties, and suspending, for the time, either in whole or in part, both the reason and the outward senses. In this meaning of the word, both the Prophets of old, and the Apostles, were proper enthusiasts; being, at divers times, so filled with the Spirit, and so influenced by Him who dwelt in their hearts, that the exercise of their own reason, their senses, and all their natural faculties, being suspended, they were wholly actuated by the power of God, and “spake” only “as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
Others take the word in an indifferent sense, such as is neither morally good nor evil: thus they speak of the enthusiasm of the poets; of Homer and Virgil in particular. And this a late eminent writer extends so far as to assert, there is no man excellent in his profession, whatsoever it be, who has not in his temper a strong tincture of enthusiasm. By enthusiasm these appear to understand, all uncommon vigour of thought, a peculiar fervour of spirit, a vivacity and strength not to be found in common men; elevating the soul to greater and higher things than cool reason could have attained.
But neither of these is the sense wherein the word “enthusiasm” is most usually understood. The generality of men, if no farther agreed, at least agree thus far concerning it, that it is something evil: and this is plainly the sentiment of all those who call the religion of the heart “enthusiasm.” Accordingly, I shall take it in the following pages, as an evil; a misfortune, if not a fault. As to the nature of enthusiasm, it is, undoubtedly a disorder of the mind; and such a disorder as greatly hinders the exercise of reason. Nay, sometimes it wholly sets it aside: it not only dims but shuts the eyes of the understanding. It may, therefore, well be accounted a species of madness; of madness rather than of folly: seeing a fool is properly one who draws wrong conclusions from right premisses; whereas a madman draws right conclusions, but from wrong premisses. And so does an enthusiast suppose his premisses true, and his conclusions would necessarily follow. But here lies his mistake: his premisses are false. He imagines himself to be what he is not: and therefore, setting out wrong, the farther he goes, the more he wanders out of the way.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Sermon 37 "The Nature of Enthusiasm"
Sermons on Several Occasions (1771)

Men , God , Religion , Fools

“Someday that man will be astonished to discover there’s a whole world marching along outside his buzzing head.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 11 (p. 136)

World

“He is a gentleman of strict conscience, disdainful of all littleness and meanness and ready on the shortest notice to die any death you may please to mention rather than give occasion for the least impeachment of his integrity. He is an honourable, obstinate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely prejudiced, perfectly unreasonable man.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 2

Death , Truth

“The Liberation Ladies will lead to generations of women willing to support a tired husband, and provide for his old age. He can be snug-abed in the morning while she pounds off in her thick boots to her job or carries a briefcase to her office. And when she comes home at night - she can cook his dinner, too, and wash and iron his shirts. She can do the housework, while he watches TV and complains of the pain in his back - which she will eventually rub away at bedtime. Women wanted careers, didn't they? They can do a man’s work, can't they? Well, let 'em do it, and be glad they were able to get a husband besides, even if they have to take care of him! Men, in short, are licking their lips and, for the first time in history, are readying themselves to be the exploiters in their turn…. Mom's out there, plugging and 'fulfilling' herself, and why should Pop worry? He's had it coming to him since Eve….”

Taylor Caldwell (1900–1985) Novelist

"They're Spoiling Eve's Great Con Game" in American Opinion (September 1970), p. 6
1970s-

Women , Men , Pain , Age

“The distinction between true and false consciousness, real and immediate interest still is meaningful. But this distinction itself must be validated. Men must come to see it and to find their way from false to true consciousness, from their immediate to their real interest. They can do so only if they live in need of changing their way of life, of denying the positive, of refusing. It is precisely this need which the established society manages to repress to the degree to which it is capable of “delivering the goods” on an increasingly large scale, and using the scientific conquest of nature for the scientific conquest of man.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), pp. xlv-xlvi

Life , Men , Way , Nature

“Time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.”

William Blackstone book Commentaries on the Laws of England

Book I, ch. 18 http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk1ch18.asp: Of Corporations.
Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769)

Memory , Time

“Tsenov is famous in Italy for his logical Bulgarian erudition and in Germany, with his previous work, he has revolutionized the origin of the Bulgarians and the other Slavs in the Balkans … The thesis on the Thracian-Bulgarian origin of the Bulgarians was supported by Tsenov with a great controversial liveliness, sometimes quite brave, always resting on arguments that can not be denied without an absolute competence, because the author who has devoted his entire life to this study does not allow concessions … He establishes in a complete picture Irvine inhabit life, the language of the Thracians and Illyrians, ethnic influence they exercised on the development of peoples-conquerors in the Balkans, to reach aboriginal character of the Bulgarians, which is comprehensively addressed and clearly and accurately exposed. All this work has been examined with a critical chronological and convincing method. He deserves praise. Mr. Tsenov shows that he is a man who has a deep knowledge and a great skill, a man who has put all his love and his whole excitement, always inspired by a belief that undoubtedly gives him the right to delight.”

Gancho Tsenov (1870–1949) Bulgarian historian

quotations for him
Source: prof. dr. Antonio Baldaci, член на Италианската АН, сп. „Светоглас”, юни (June), 1937 г., стр. 6

Love , Life , People , Exercises

“There is a true, religious devotion in the mind and feelings of that man whose soul springs forth in beauty and power, whose physical form is upright and symmetrical, and who, in fulfilling the laws of health, fulfils the laws of Deity. There is a true religion in the intellectual man, who, penetrating deeply into the earth, and air, and sky, for scientific investigation, culls all the treasures of thought and beauty, and stores them up in his memory as sacred and divine.”

Cora L. V. Scott (1840–1923) American spiritualist, writer

“The Religion of Life” (1858)

Health , Religion , Law , Beauty

“A man who works under orders with other men must be without vanity. If he has too strong a will of his own and if his ideas are in conflict with those of his chief, the execution of orders will always be uncertain because of his efforts to interpret them in his own way. Faith in the chief must keep the gang together. Obviously deference must not turn into servility. A chief of staff or a departmental head should be able, if it seems to him (rightly or wrongly) that his superior is making a serious mistake, to tell him so courageously. But this sort of collaboration is really effective only if such frankness has true admiration and devotion behind it. If the lieutenant does not admit that his chief is more experienced and has better judgment than he himself, he will serve him badly. Criticism of the chief by a subordinate must be accidental and not habitual. What must an assistant do if he is sure he is right and if his chief refuses to accept his criticisms? He must obey the order after offering his objections. No collective work is possible without discipline. If the matter is so serious that it can have a permanent effect upon the future of a country, an army, or a commercial enterprise, the critic may hand in his resignation. But this must be done only as a last resort; as long as a man thinks he can be useful he must remain at his post.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Working

Men , Faith , Way , Idea

“He said twice over before he knew himself:
"Can't a man speak of his own child he's lost?""Not you!'—'Oh, where's my hat? Oh, I don't need it!
I must get out of here. I must get air.'—
I don't know rightly whether any man can."”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Home Burial (1915)

“Who can exhaust a man? Who knows a man’s resources?”

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Nausea (1938)

“By the time Verily was sixteen, a sturdy and rather good-looking young man of some education and impeccable manners, he had become a thoroughgoing skeptic. If the dogmas about witchery could be so hopelessly wrong, how could any of the teachings of the ministers be relied upon? It left Verily Cooper at loose ends, intellectually speaking, for all his teachers spoke as if religion were the cornerstone of all other learning, and yet all of Verily’s actual studies led him to the conclusion that sciences founded upon religion were uncertain at best, utterly bogus at worst.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Alvin Journeyman (1995), Chapter 9.

Education , Religion , Study , Learning

“A man must know his limitations.”

David Gemmell book Legend

Source: Drenai series, Legend, Pt 1: Against the Horde, Ch. 10

“Toadvine sat with his boots crossed before the fire. No man can acquaint himself with everything on this earth, he said.”

Cormac McCarthy book Blood Meridian

Blood Meridian (1985)

“Every man has a mob self and an individual self, in varying proportions.”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

Pornography and Obscenity (1929)

“The difference between the past and present selves of the same individual is so great as to make them different persons for all moral purposes. That single fact we were just speaking of—the fact that no man would care for vengeance on one who had injured him, provided he knew that all memory of the offence had been blotted utterly from his enemy's mind—proves the entire proposition. It shows that it is not the present self of his enemy that the avenger is angry with at all, but the past self. Even in the blindness of his wrath he intuitively recognizes the distinction between the two.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Dr. Heidenhoff's Process http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7052/7052-h/7052-h.htm (1880), Ch. 11.

Memory , Past , Personality

“Some that oppose this doctrine indeed say, that the apostle sometimes means that it is by faith, i. e. a hearty embracing the gospel in its first act only, or without any preceding holy life, that persons are admitted into a justified state; but, say they, it is by a persevering obedience that they are continued in a justified state, and it is by this that they are finally justified. But this is the same thing as to say, that a man on his first embracing the gospel is conditionally justified and pardoned. To pardon sin, is to free the sinner from the punishment of it, or from that eternal misery that is due to it; and therefore if a person is pardoned, or freed from this misery, on his first embracing the gospel, and yet not finally freed, but his actual freedom still depends on some condition yet to be performed, it is inconceivable how he can be pardoned otherwise than conditionally; that is, he is not properly actually pardoned, and freed from punishment, but only he has God’s promise that he shall be pardoned on future conditions. God promises him, that now, if he perseveres in obedience, he shall be finally pardoned, or actually freed from hell; which is to make just nothing at all of the apostle’s great doctrine of justification by faith alone. Such a conditional pardon is no pardon or justification at all, any more than all mankind have, whether they embrace the gospel or no; for they all have a promise of final justification on conditions of future sincere obedience, as much as he that embraces the gospel.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

Justification By Faith Alone (1738)

Life , God , Faith , Hell

“We begin by stating that religion is unbelief. It is a concern, indeed, we must say that it is the one great concern, of godless man…”

Karl Barth book Church Dogmatics

1:2
Church Dogmatics (1932–1968)

Religion

“Three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write.”

Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) English novelist (1815-1882)

Source: An Autobiography (1883), Ch. 15

“Count Dashkov: Ah, Mathieu Golovinski, I hear good things about you…I have need for a young man with your talents!
Golivinski: You flatter me, your honor, thank you! Thank you!
Count Dashkov: There is great concern at the tsar’s court these days.. his majesty is quite disturbed by the people’s unrest!
Count Dashkov: I am convinced there is a deep conspiracy afoot in Russia that is poisoning people’s minds.
This evil is a threat to the monarchy itself! But it must be suppressed with powerful weapons!
Golivinski: Weapons?
Count Dashkov: Documentation, my boy…proof of their villainous conspiracy! Proof is the weapon!’’’
And you are skilled at fashioning such weapons, my boy!
So…here, I am recommending you to general of the holy synod.
Golivinski: The synod is a Christian orthodoxy…it’s members are active in proselytizing
Count Dashkov: Exactly! They have been helping the tsar by bringing Christianity to the pagan peasants in the volga…from that office any information will be accepted without question by the public!
So…do you have any question or doubts about getting involved with them?
Golivinski: Oh no!! It matters little to me.
I serve loyally whoever pays me, sir.”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp. 40-42

People , Boy , Fashion , Question

“Time stands still for man and woman alike, it is a good moment, because Time usually makes everything worse, poor people grow old, rich people can buy a little time but they can'hold it up for good, it always catches up with them. In the last analysis, Time is democratic.”

Elfriede Jelinek book Wonderful, Wonderful Times

123
Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

People , Time

“The last man! Yes I may well describe that solitary being's feelings, feeling myself as the last relic of a beloved race, my companions extinct before me…”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851) English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer

Journal entry on the writing of her science-fiction novel The Last Man (14 May 1824)

Feeling

“The result of this is fear. And man gasps for safety and morality.”

Sukarno (1901–1970) first President of the Republic of Indonesia

Speech at the Opening of the Bandung Conference

Fear

“If you're looking for a place to rest
Cold Mountain is good for a long stay
The breeze blowing through the dark pines
Sounds better the closer you come
And under the trees a white haired man
Mumbles over his Taoist texts
Ten years now he hasn't gone home
He's even forgotten the road he came by”

Han-shan Chinese monk and poet

Cold Mountain: 100 Poems by the T'ang Poet Han-shan

Home , Mountain , Tree

“Perhaps the first fire, the first tool, the first wheel, the first carving in a limestone cave, had each possessed a symbolic rather than a practical value, had each been pressed to serve distortion rather than reality. It was a sort of madness that had driven man from his humble sites on the edges of the woods into towns and cities, into arts and wars, into religious crusades, into martyrdom and prostitution, into dyspepsia and fasting, into love and hatred, into this present cul-de-sac; it had all come about in pursuit of symbols. In the beginning was the symbol, and darkness was over the face of the Earth.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 3 (p. 91)

Love , War , Art , Reality

“A man who has made up his mind on a given subject twenty-five years ago and continues to hold his political opinions after he has been proved to be wrong is a man of principle; while he who from time to time adapts his opinions to the changing circumstances of life is an opportunist.”

A. P. Herbert book Uncommon Law

"Which Is the Liberal Party?"
Uncommon Law (1935)

Life , Change , Time

“So, then, as darkness had no beginning, neither will it ever have an end. So, then, is it eternal. The negation of aught else, is its affirmation. Where the light cannot come, there abideth the darkness. The light doth but hollow a mine out of the infinite extension of the darkness. And ever upon the steps of the light treadeth the darkness; yea, springeth in fountains and wells amidst it, from the secret channels of its mighty sea. Truly, man is but a passing flame, moving unquietly amid the surrounding rest of night; without which he yet could not be, and whereof he is in part compounded.”

George MacDonald book Phantastes

Phantastes (1858)

Secret , Light , Parting , Sea

“A small but brilliant advance made today by someone’s awareness may for the moment reach a very small audience, but insofar as it’s valid and beautiful, it will make its way and become part of the whole world of consciousness. So in that sense it’s all working toward this huge audience, and all working toward a better man.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

The Paris Review interview (1963)

World , Beauty , Way , Sense

“Curse on the man who business first designed,
And by't enthralled a freeborn lover's mind!”

John Oldham (poet) (1653–1683) English satirical poet and translator

Complaining of Absence, 11; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922).

Lovers , Business

“As a proud American, a father who lost his own dad in a senseless act of violence, and a black man, I have been deeply troubled by the deaths of African-Americans at the hands of law enforcement and angered by the cowardly and hateful targeting and killing of police officers. I grieve with the families who have lost loved ones, as I know their pain all too well.”

Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman

Love , Death , Pain , Hate

“A man will rise, a man will fall. From the shear face of love like a fly from the wall”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

"The Fly"
Lyrics, Achtung Baby (1991)

Love , Flying

“No one knows the origin of life, or of matter, or of what we call mind. The whence and the whither are questions that no man can answer. In the presence of these questions all intellects are upon a level. The barbarian knows exactly the same as the scientist, the fool as the philosopher. Only those who think that they have had some supernatural information pretend to answer these questions, and the unknowable, the impossible, the unfathomable, is the realm wholly occupied by the “inspired.””

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

"To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)

Life , Fools , Question , Thinking

“Or indeed we may say again, it is in what I called Portrait-painting, delineating of men and things, especially of men, that Shakspeare is great. All the greatness of the man comes out decisively here. It is unexampled, I think, that calm creative perspicacity of Shakspeare. The thing he looks at reveals not this or that face of it, but its inmost heart and generic secret: it dissolves itself as in light before him, so that he discerns the perfect structure of it. Creative, we said: poetic creation, what is this too but seeing the thing sufficiently? The word that will describe the thing, follows of itself from such clear intense sight of the thing. And is not Shakspeare's morality, his valour, candour, tolerance, truthfulness; his whole victorious strength and greatness, which can triumph over such obstructions, visible there too? Great as the world!”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Poet

Men , Truth , Secret , World

“So that, in the Islamic state, Delhi was not the capital of the empire; it was Quwwat-ul-Islam. The king was not the ruler of the people; he was Amir-ul-Mauminin, “the conqueror of infidels and shelterer of Islam.” The army was not the royal army; it was Lashkar-i-Islam. The soldier was not a cavalry man or infantry man; he was Ahl-i-Jihad. The law of the state was not any secular or humanitarian law; it was Shariat, the law of Islam. The state was not an end in itself, like the Greek state, but a means of sub-serving the interests of Islam. Conquests were made, shrines were broken, captives were taken, converts were made - all in the name of Islam. The raison d’etre of the regime was to disseminate the Islamic faith.”

K. S. Lal book The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India

Source: The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India (1992), Chapter 4

People , Faith , Law

“Our feeling of ignorance, vanity, want, weakness, in short, depravity and corruption, reminds us … that in the Lord, and none but He, dwell the true light of wisdom, solid virtue, exuberant goodness. We are accordingly urged by our own evil things to consider the good things of God; and, indeed, we cannot aspire to Him in earnest until we have begun to be displeased with ourselves. For what man is not disposed to rest in himself? Who, in fact, does not thus rest, so long as he is unknown to himself; that is, so long as he is contented with his own endowments, and unconscious or unmindful of his misery? Every person, therefore, on coming to the knowledge of himself, is not only urged to seek God, but is also led as by the hand to find him.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book 1, Chapter 1, p. 44
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

Wisdom , God , Feeling , Knowledge

“God pity the man or the nation wise in proverbs, I told myself, for there is much misery and much error gone into the collecting of such a store.”

Kenneth Burke (1897–1993) American philosopher

Source: Towards a Better Life (1966), p. 8

God , Error

“There is, I believe, something, which may be named by the misleading and debased word 'religion', and is the most distinctively human or awakened activity of man. But clearly there is something else, which is also called 'religion', and is his greatest folly and shame.”

Olaf Stapledon (1886–1950) British novelist and philosopher

Other texts
Source: Waking World, Chapter 11: Religion http://olafstapledonarchive.webs.com/wakingworld_ch11.html

Religion

“How have people come to be taken in by The Phenomenon of Man? We must not underestimate the size of the market for works of this kind, for philosophy-fiction. Just as compulsory primary education created a market catered for by cheap dailies and weeklies, so the spread of secondary and latterly tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well-developed literary and scholarly tastes, who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought.”

Peter Medawar (1915–1987) scientist

1960s, Review of Teilhard de Chardin's "The Phenomenon of Man", 1961

People , Education

“Society is not the criminal but the force which keeps crime in check. When social controls weaken, man’s innate cruelty bursts forth. The rapist is created not by bad social conditioning influences but by a failure of social conditioning. Feminists, seeking to drive power relations out of sex, have set themselves against nature. In western culture, there are no nonexploitative relationships. Everyone has killed in order to live. Nature’s universal law of creation from destruction operates in mind as in matter. As Freud, Nietzsche’s heir, asserts, identity is conflict. Each generation drives its plow over the bones of the dead.</b”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 2

Law , Sex , Failure , Nature

“I have often thought, with reference to the late War…that it has shown the whole world how thin is the crust of civilisation on which this generation is walking. The realisation of that must have come with an appalling shock to most of us here. But more than that. There is not a man in this House who does not remember the first air raids and the first use of poisoned gas, and the cry that went up from this country. We know how, before the War ended, we were all using both those means of imposing our will upon our enemy. We realise that when men have their backs to the wall they will adopt any means for self-preservation. But there was left behind an uncomfortable feeling in the hearts of millions of men throughout Europe that, whatever had been the result of the War, we had all of us slipped down in our views of what constituted civilisation. We could not help feeling that future wars might provide, with further discoveries in science, a more rapid descent for the human race. There came a feeling, which I know is felt in all quarters of this House, that if our civilisation is to be saved, even at its present level, it behoves all people in all nations to do what they can by joining hands to save what we have, that we may use it as the vantage ground for further progress, rather than run the risk of all of us sliding in the abyss together.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1923/jul/23/military-expenditure-and-disarmament in the House of Commons (23 July 1923).
1923

Men , War , People , World

“A man cannot have a better guide than himself, nor any physic better than a regular life.”

Luigi Cornaro (1484–1566) Italian philosopher

Discourses on the Sober Life

Life

“Our love is old, our lives are old,
And death shall come amain;
Should it come today, what man may say
We shall not live again?”

Langdon Smith Evolution

Evolution (1895; 1909)

Love , Death

“The tambourine jingle-jangles.
The medium roams and rambles.
Not taken in,
I break the circle.
I want this man
To go away now.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Dreaming (1982)

“Now, I don’t care to discuss the alleged complaints American Indians have against this country. I believe, with good reason, the most unsympathetic Hollywood portrayal of Indians and what they did to the white man. They had no right to a country merely because they were born here and then acted like savages. The white man did not conquer this country…”

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

Address To The Graduating Class Of The United States Military Academy at West Point, 1974

Country

“I think that Hitler was abnormal in his sexual needs. That is, he needed too little from the opposite sex. He considered women as objects of beauty, and he often talked with affection about his own mother. I obtained the impression that he disliked his father, because he never mentioned him. But it is a bad thing if a man has too little Eros in him. It makes him insensitive, and probably leads to cruelty. Freud, Sigmund Freud, the last of the great German psychiatrists, who died in England, pointed out the relationship between frustrated love and cruelty. I believe it is what you psychiatrists term sadism. I'm convinced that a man who does not need the love of a woman, and thinks he can forgo it, or who does forgo it, can turn to cruelty and sadism as a substitute.”

Hans Frank (1900–1946) German war criminal

To Leon Goldensohn, July 20, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004

Love , Women , Beauty , Sex

“Everyone in Boston of a certain age knows the story of Rosie Ruiz, the marathoner who crossed the Boston finish line in 1980 at 2:31.56, flabby thighs and all, having barely broken a sweat. Despite mounting skepticism, she basked in the glory of having run the third-fastest female marathon in history – for a few days, that is, until a couple of students remembered seeing her jump out of the crowd half a mile from the finish.
Something of the sort has been going on recently with the shade of Friedrich von Hayek. The Austrian economist, who died in 1992 just short of what would have been his ninety-third birthday, never made false claims for himself – far from it: he knew all too well the loneliness of the long distance runner. And scrupulous work as editor by the late W. W. Bartley, interpreter Bruce Caldwell, and biographer Alan Ebenstein, have made it possible to see the man clear.
But the claims conservatives are making about the role he played as an economist are beginning to smack of Ruizismus. That is, they have jumped a caricature out of the bushes late in the day and claim that their guy ran a great race.”

David Warsh (1944) American journalist

"Ruizismus among the Austrians," 4 December 2011

Age , Guy , History , Birthday

“Man is always partial and is quite right to be. Even impartiality is partial.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

F 78
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)

“I ask you, what am I? I’m one of the undeserving poor: thats what I am. Think of what that means to a man.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Act II
1910s, Pygmalion (1912)

Thinking

“There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Summing Up

Ch. 4, p. 11 http://books.google.com/books?id=Ma3RAAAAMAAJ&q=%22There+is+a+sort+of+man+who+pays+no+attention+to+his+good+actions+but+is+tormented+by+his+bad+ones+this+is+the+type+that+most+often+writes+about+himself%22&pg=PA11#v=onepage
The Summing Up (1938)

“Think back through all the eras of history—the major ones, the tiny obscure ones known only to scholars. Can you think of a man, ever, who was capable of fashioning the future development of mankind to suit his own idea of it—no matter how noble that ideal may have been? Wouldn’t that be just another form of opinion control—no matter how splendid the conception?”
Kennedy did not turn around.
“It takes a great deal of faith in mankind to keep from directing it the way we think it should go,” he said at last.”

Mark Clifton book They'd Rather Be Right

Source: They'd Rather Be Right (1954), p. 92.

Faith , Way , History , Idea

“Mondrian? His mind was too subtle. He worked in the light. I work in the darkness... Mondrian is the Buddha of painting. I saw him once. You wondered how a man could radiate such charisma.”

Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter

2 April 1967; p. 62
1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

Light , Painting

“Wild dreams! but such
As Plato lov'd; such as with holy zeal
Our Milton worshipp'd. Blessed hopes! awhile
From man with-held, even to the latter days
When Christ shall come, and all things be fulfill'd.”

Robert Southey (1774–1843) British poet

For the apartment in Chepstow Castle where Henry Marten the Regicide was imprisoned thirty years.

Dreams , Hope , Christ

“He said to the effect that no knowledge of Islam can be gained from books of Kalam, as kalam is not from knowledge and that "It is better for a man to spend his whole life doing whatever Allah has prohibited - besides shirk with Allah - rather than spending his whole life involved in kalam.”

Al-Shafi‘i (767–820) Founder of Sunni Shafi‘i

Ibn Abi Hatim, Manaaqibush-Shaafi'ee, pg. 39

Life , Books , Knowledge

“Peter Mandelson is the only man I know who can skulk in broad daylight.”

Simon Hoggart (1946–2014) English journalist and broadcaster

Hoggart's Guardian column 11 Sep 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/sep/11/politics.guardiancolumnists

“Many of the medical men who have denounced the practice of vivisection as inhuman, fallacious and dangerous have been among the most distinguished in their profession. Rather than a minority, they ought to be called an élite. And in fact, opinions should not only be counted — they should also be weighed. The first great medical man who indicated that vivisection is not just inhuman and unscientific, but that it is unscientific because it is inhuman was Sir Charles Bell … At the time the aberration of vivisection began to take root in its modern form, he declared that it could only be practiced by callous individuals, who couldn't be expected to penetrate the mysteries of life.”

Hans Ruesch (1913–2007) Swiss racing driver

Source: Slaughter of the Innocent (1978), p. 7

Life , Men , Time

“In this essay on econometrics in its conception and its use in economic planning for the betterment of man’s fate, I will try to cover a very broad field.
When talking about the methodology in the particular fields mentioned - about which I am supposed to have a little more than second hand knowledge - I have always found it utterly inadequate to focus attention only on these special fields without seeing them in a much broader perspective.
Therefore it was inevitable that I should have to include in the field of vision of this paper also some branches of science where I can only speak as a layman, hopefully as a somewhat informed layman. For whatever blunders I may have made in these fields I must ask for the reader’s forgiveness”

Ragnar Frisch (1895–1973) Norwegian economist

Source: 1970s and later, From Utopian Theory to Practical Applications, 1970, p. 9 : Lead paragraph

Fate , Forgiveness , Knowledge , Science

“The natur o' things doesn't change, though it seems as if one's own life was nothing but change. The square o' four is sixteen, and you must lengthen your lever in proportion to your weight, is as true when a man's miserable as when he's happy; and the best o' working is, it gives you a grip hold o' things outside your own lot.”

George Eliot book Adam Bede

Adam Bede (1859)

Life , Nature , Change , Happiness

“Satiation, like any state of vitality, always contains a degree of impudence, and that impudence emerges first and foremost when the sated man instructs the hungry one.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Letter to A.S. Suvorin (October 20, 1891)
Letters

“No, the enjoyment of an idle life doesn't cost any money. The capacity for true enjoyment of idleness is lost in the moneyed class and can be found only among people who have a supreme contempt for wealth. It must come from an inner richness of the soul in a man who loves the simple ways of life and who is somewhat impatient with the business of making money.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 155

Love , Life , Money , People

“Can't you feel that the German people has carried for seven years from one station of pain to another a huge cross? Can't you feel that it is persecuted, hounded and whipped bloody like the Nazarene? If you cannot feel that it is gasping under the weight of the cross which was burdened on it and that it walks on its way to Golgatha -- then you're not worth that God the Lord will again let the sun of his mercy shine upon you. …
Help us so that in this decisive hour the German people will be freed from the weight of the cross of the yoke of Jewry! Help us, so that a mighty man who's been gifted by God can give us back our freedom and that it will again be a proud people in a German country! Take care that Germany is freed from the chains she has been bound with for seven years. Put an end to this slavery! Our people shall again be great, proud and beautiful!”

Julius Streicher (1885–1946) German politician

Fühlt Ihr denn nicht, dass das deutsche Volk sieben Jahre lang von einer Leidensstation zur anderen ein Riesenkreuz geschleppt hat? Fühlt Ihr nicht, dass es gejagt, gehetzt und blutig gepeitscht worden ist wie jener Nazarener? Wenn Ihr nicht fühlt, dass unser Volk sich keuchend unter der Last des Kreuzes, das man ihm auflud, auf dem Weg nach Golgatha schleppt, dann seid Ihr nicht wert, dass unser Herrgott Euch noch einmal mit seiner Gnadensonne bescheint. ...
Helft in dieser entscheidungsvollen Stunde mit, dass das deutsche Volk von der Kreuzeslast des jüdischen Joches befreit wird! Helft mit, dass ein starker, von Gott begnadeter Mann ihm die Freiheit schenkt und dass es wieder ein stolzes Volk in deutschen Landen wird! Sorgt, dass Deutschland von der Kette, die es sieben Jahre lange tragen musste, frei wird. Deshalb heraus aus der Sklaverei! Unser Volk muss wieder groß, stolz und schön werden!
03/07/1932, speech in the convention center (Kongresshalle) in Nuremberg ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)

God , Pain , People , Beauty

“A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

[2008-08-29, Palin Speaks to Newsmax About McCain, Abortion, Mike, Coppock, Newsmax, http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/sarah-palin-vp/2008/08/29/id/325086, 2008-09-10, http://web.archive.org/web/20080910011750/http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/sarah_palin_vp/2008/08/29/126139.html]
Posed question: What is your take on global warming and how is it affecting our country?
2014

Change

“Man's secret horror of his foot is one of the explanations for the tendency to conceal its length and form as much as possible. Heels of greater or lesser height, depending on the sex, distract from the foot's low and flat character. Besides the uneasiness is often confused with a sexual uneasiness; this is especially striking among the Chinese who, after having atrophied the feet of women, situate them at the most excessive point of deviance. The husband himself must not see the nude feet of his wife, and it is incorrect and immoral in general to look at the feet of women. Catholic confessors, adapting themselves to this aberration, ask their Chinese penitents "if they have not looked at women's feet.
The same aberration is found among the Turks (Volga Turks, Turks of Central Asia), who consider it immortal to show their nude feet and whoe ven go to bed in stockings.
Nothing similar can be cited from classical antiquity (apart from the use of very high soles in tragedies). The most prudish Roman matrons constantly allowed their nude toes to be seen. On the other hand, modesty concerning feet developed excessively in the modern ea and only started to disappear in the nineteenth century. M. Salomon Reinarch has studied this development in detail in the article entitled Pieds pudiques [Modest Feet], insisting on the role of Spain, where women's feet have been the object of most dreaded anxiety and thus were the cause of crimes. The simple fact of allowing the shod foot to be seen, jutting up from under a skirt, was regarded as indecent. Under no circumstances was it possible to touch the foot of a woman.”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

Source: Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939, p.21-22

Women , Secret , Sex , Study

“I don't call that a failure, a real failure is when a man talks for an hour and says nothing.”

Joseph Dare (reverend) (1831–1880) Australian clergyman

To Henry Howard, who had resolved never to attempt public speaking again after breaking down in attempting to speak in a church meeting. Reported in Dictionary of Australian Biography http://gutenberg.net.au/dictbiog/0-dict-biogHi-Hu.html#howard2|accessdate=2009-09-27.

Failure

“He hated to leave, but he loved his work. He was a man, and men needed to work. More sexism! More masculine tunnel vision! More need for gender-sensitivity workshops!”

Sherman Alexie (1966) Native American author and filmmaker

Ten Little Indians (2003)

Love , Men , Hate

“It's high school, man. They compare it to prison in the movie.”

Eliza Dushku (1980) American actress

Eliza Dushku Interview - "The New Guy" http://movies.about.com/library/weekly/aa050202b.htm by Rebecca Murray and Fred Topel.

School

“What expressions we used – in part taken over and in part newly invented! — above all, the famous 'wholly other' breaking in upon us ‘perpendicularly from above,’ the not less famous 'infinite qualitative distinction' between God and man, the vacuum, the mathematical point, and the tangent in which alone they must meet.”

Karl Barth (1886–1968) Swiss Protestant theologian

The Humanity of God (1960), p. 42.

God , Mathematics , Parting

“Life cannot be reconciled with the idea that back of the universe is a Supreme Being, all merciful and kind, and that he takes any account of the human beings and other forms of life that exist upon the earth. Whichever way man may look upon the earth, he is oppressed with the suffering incident to life. It would almost seem as though the earth had been created with malignity and hatred. If we look at what we are pleased to call the lower animals, we behold a universal carnage. We speak of the seemingly peaceful woods, but we need only look beneath the surface to be horrified by the misery of that underworld. Hidden in the grass and watching for its prey is the crawling snake which swiftly darts upon the toad or mouse and gradually swallows it alive; the hapless animal is crushed by the jaws and covered with slime, to be slowly digested in furnishing a meal. The snake knows nothing about sin or pain inflicted upon another; he automatically grabs insects and mice and frogs to preserve his life. The spider carefully weaves his web to catch the unwary fly, winds him into the fatal net until paralyzed and helpless, then drinks his blood and leaves him an empty shell. The hawk swoops down and snatches a chicken and carries it to its nest to feed its young. The wolf pounces on the lamb and tears it to shreds. The cat watches at the hole of the mouse until the mouse cautiously comes out, then with seeming fiendish glee he plays with it until tired of the game, then crushes it to death in his jaws. The beasts of the jungle roam by day and night to find their prey; the lion is endowed with strength of limb and fang to destroy and devour almost any animal that it can surprise or overtake. There is no place in the woods or air or sea where all life is not a carnage of death in terror and agony. Each animal is a hunter, and in turn is hunted, by day and night. No landscape is beautiful or day so balmy but the cry of suffering and sacrifice rends the air. When night settles down over the earth the slaughter is not abated. Some creatures are best at night, and the outcry of the dying and terrified is always on the wind. Almost all animals meet death by violence and through the most agonizing pain. With the whole animal creation there is nothing like a peaceful death. Nowhere in nature is there the slightest evidence of kindness, of consideration, or a feeling for the suffering and the weak, except in the narrow circle of brief family life.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

Source: The Story of My Life (1932), p. 383

Life , Death , Pain , Family

“Scaffolds, dungeons, jails flourish only in the shadow of a faith — of that need to believe which has infested the mind forever. The devil pales beside the man who owns a truth, his truth. We are unfair to a Nero, a Tiberius: it was not they who invented the concept heretic: they were only degenerate dreamers who happened to be entertained by massacres. The real criminals are men who establish an orthodoxy on the religious or political level, men who distinguish between the faithful and the schismatic.”

Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay (1949)

Men , Truth , Faith

“Good thinking,” the tall man agreed. “In this case it’s not true, but it is good thinking.”

Michael Kurland (1938) American writer

Source: Tomorrow Knight (1976), Chapter 6 (p. 57)

Thinking

“(Man on television) Man is the hunter. Woman is the civilizing influence, and when women abandon that role, men become (Sylvia) Cranky, and start wars.”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p.169

Women , Men , War

“Modern man … when he looks at his daily newspaper … sees the events of the day refracted through a medium which colors them as effectively as the cosmology of the medieval scientist determined his view of the starry heavens. The newspaper is a man-made cosmos of the world of events around us at the time. For the average reader it is a construct with a set of significances which he no more thinks of examining than did his pious forbear of the thirteenth century—whom he pities for sitting in medieval darkness—think of questioning the cosmology. This modern man, too, lives under a dome, whose theoretical aspect has been made to harmonize with a materialistic conception of the world. And he employs its conjunctions and oppositions to explain the occurrences of his time with all the confidence of the now supplanted discipline of astrology.”

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

Source: Ideas have Consequences (1948), pp. 93-94.

World , Color , Confidence , Question

“He was a man of immense intellectual capabilities and most of us were marvelling at his doctorate thesis which focused on the mathematical solutions using digit zero. As a politician he was a man who choose his words carefully. As a personal and trusted friend whom I had assigned key responsibilities, the loss of Saitoti has been a painful experience to me”

Mwai Kibaki (1931) Former president of Kenya

Speaking at the George Saitoti burial (16 June 2012) at All Africa

Pain , Mathematics , Loss , Personality

“The Value or WORTH of a man, is as of all other things, his Price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his Power…”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The First Part, Chapter 10, p. 42
Leviathan (1651)

“To be an existentialist, one must be able to feel oneself — one must know one’s desires, one’s rages, one’s anguish, one must be aware of the character of one’s frustration and know what would satisfy it. The over-civilized man can be an existentialist only if it is chic, and deserts it quickly for the next chic.”

Norman Mailer book Advertisements for Myself

"The White Negro", first published in Dissent (Summer 1957)
Advertisements for Myself (1959)

Feeling , Rage

“See, I'm looking for a man that'll rub me slow, make me sing real high when he goes down low.”

Mariah Carey (1970) American singer-songwriter

"One & Only", The Emancipation of Mimi, 2005.
Lyrics

Singing

“Repudiation of pleasur is a reason'd folly
of imperfection. Ther is no motiv can rebate
or decompose the intrinsic joy of activ life,
whereon all function whatsoever in man is based.”

Robert Seymour Bridges (1844–1930) British writer

Book IV, lines 459-462.
The Testament of Beauty (1929-1930)

Life , Pleasure , Motivation , Joy

“The conservatives see man as a body freely roaming the earth, building sand piles or factories—with an electronic computer inside his skull, controlled from Washington. The liberals see man as a soul freewheeling to the farthest reaches of the universe—but wearing chains from nose to toes when he crosses the street to buy a loaf of bread.”

Ayn Rand book Philosophy: Who Needs It

Philosophy: Who Needs It (1982)

Soul , Universe

“The shrinking of church religion, however, is only one – and the sociologically less interesting – dimension of the problem of secularization. For the analysis of contemporary society another question is more important. What are the dominant values overarching contemporary culture? What is the socio-structural basis of these values and what is their function in the live of contemporary man?”

Thomas Luckmann (1927–2016) American-Austrian sociologist

Source: The invisible religion, 1967, p. 40

Religion , Question , Problem

“In ancient times, any man rising up above the common people tried to shape his life according to his principles; it is no longer like than now; it is (because) for the ancients, moral was a principle of inner life, whereas in our days, most of the time one is content to adhere to an official moral, that we recognize in theory, but that one does not care to put into practice.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 39.

Life , People , Time

“No man can come into a British Court of justice to seek the assistance of the law who founds his claim upon a contravention of the British laws.”

Richard Arden, 1st Baron Alvanley (1744–1804) British judge and politician

Morck v. Abel (1802), 3 Bos. and Pull. 38.

Justice , Law

“center>Sacred to the Memory
of the Honorable
Sir Joseph Yates, Knight,
of Peel Hall in Lancashire,
successively a Judge of the Courts
of King's Bench and Common Pleas;
whose merit advanced him to the
feat of Justice, which he filled with the most
distinguished abilities and invincible integrity.
He died the 7th day of June 1770,
in the 48th year of his age,
leaving the world to lament the loss
of an honest Man and able Judge,
firm to assert
and strenuous to support
the laws and constitution
of his Country.</center”

Joseph Yates (judge) (1722–1770) English barrister and judge

Monument inscription, British History Online: Cheam http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45375.
About

Age , World , Justice , Law

“The truth is that once you discover something is false you lose interest in it. Man no longer treasures what he thought was genuine once he discovers it is false. In this way truth is its own solution. Self-knowledge is the discovery of the false. You do not have to find what is true: when the false is discarded truth is there. It always was. Just keep observing the fact and the change will come automatically and will he lasting.”

Barry Long (1926–2003) Australian spiritual teacher and writer

Knowing Yourself: The True in the False (1996)

Truth , Way , Knowledge , Change

“The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe — the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1961, Inaugural Address

Life , God , World

“It is above all the impersonal and economically rationalized (but for this very reason ethically irrational) character of purely commercial relationships that evokes the suspicion, never clearly expressed but all the more strongly felt, of ethical religions. For every purely personal relationship of man to man, of whatever sort and even including complete enslavement, may be subjected to ethical requirements and ethically regulated. This is true because the structures of these relationships depend upon the individual wills of the participants, leaving room in such relations for manifestations of the virtue of charity. But this is not the situation in the realm of economically rationalised relationships, where personal control is exercised in inverse ratio to the degree of rational differentiation of the economic structure.”

Max Weber (1864–1920) German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist

Source: Sociology of Religion (1922), pp. 216-217

Religion , Exercises , Dependency , Personality

“I have to say that I haven't met an aggressive beggar in London. In New York, crossing 58th Street from the Plaza Oyster Bar to the Wyndham Hotel, I came up against a huge black man in a long, dark overcoat who said, in deep and threatening tones, "Give me fifty dollars!" I managed to ask him if he would be content with thirty-five and, rather to my surprise, he said, "All right, give me thirty-five dollars!"”

John Mortimer (1923–2009) English barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author

And so the deal was done.
Source: Where There's a Will: Thoughts on the Good Life (2003), Ch. 24 : Giving Money to Beggars

“Troy: Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such other medical films as "Mommy, What's On That Man's Face?" and "Alice Doesn't Live Anymore".”

Phil Hartman (1948–1998) Canadian American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic artist

On the Simpsons, Troy McClure

“[Nelson] "… I get none of the things a man's supposed to get from a wife."
"What are those?" Janice is truly interested; she has never heard a man spell it out.
He makes a cross evasive face. "You know – don't play naïve. Reassurance. Affection. Make the guy think he's great even if he isn't."”

John Updike book Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

Guy , Thinking

“The old man … said … the notion that men can be understood was probably an illusion.”

Cormac McCarthy book All the Pretty Horses

All the Pretty Horses (1992)

Men

“Ere now a simple tiller of the soil
Hath spoken words of wisdom to mankind;
A cloak all tattered and besmirched with toil
Hath ofttimes clothed a man of prudent mind.”

Francesco Berni (1497–1535) Italian poet

Ha qualche volta un ortolan parlato
Cose molte a proposito a la gente;
E da un mantel rotto e sporco e stato
Molte volte coperto un uom prudente.
LVIII, 1
Rifacimento of Orlando Innamorato

Wisdom , Clothes

“Titles are like clothes: they do not make the man.”

Fausto Cercignani (1941) Italian scholar, essayist and poet

Examples of self-translation (c. 2004), Quotes - Zitate - Citations - Citazioni

Clothes

“The love of independence is a sentiment that surely none would wish to see erased from the breast of man, though the parish law of England, it must be confessed, is a system of all others the most calculated gradually to weaken this sentiment, and in the end may eradicate it completely.”

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) British political economist

Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter IV, paragraph 13, lines 11-15

Love , Law

“Most wondrous book! bright candle of the Lord!
Star of Eternity! The only star
By which the bark of man could navigate
The sea of life and gain the coast of bliss
Securely.”

Robert Pollok book The Course of Time

Book ii, line 270.
The Course of Time (published 1827)

Life , Books , Star , Sea

“The word “loser” is spoken with such contempt these days, a man might like to forget the losses in his own life that taught him something about good judgment. The money he invested in that casino in Atlantic City that went bust, the university course he enrolled in that promised to teach him the secrets of success but instead he wound up unemployed and 40 grand in debt, the candidate whose hat he wore who turned out to be tone-deaf and deluded — dumb, dumb, dumb, and yet his loved ones did not chortle and point and do the nyaa-nyaa. They put an arm around him and said, “This is how we learn.””

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

And it is.
"Garrison Keillor: God help us. We’re in trouble down here." in The Washington Post (26 July 2016) https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/god-help-us-were-in-trouble-down-here/2016/07/26/989cde08-535d-11e6-b7de-dfe509430c39_story.html

Love , Life , Money , Secret

“Art goes… imitating that Rationall and most excellent worke of Nature, Man. For by Art is created that great Leviathan called a Common-Wealth or State, (in latine Civitas) which is but an Artificiall Man; though of greater stature and strength than the Naturall, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which the Soveraignty is an Artificiall Soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body; The Magistrates, and other Officers of Judicature and Execution, artificiall Joynts; Reward and Punishment (by which fastned to the seate of the Soveraignty, every joynt and member is moved to performe his duty) are the Nerves, that do the same in the Body Naturall; The Wealth and Riches of all the particular members, are the Strength; Salus Populi (the peoples safety) its Businesse; Counsellors, by whom all things needfull for it to know, are suggested unto it, are the Memory; Equity and Lawes, an artificiall Reason and Will; Concord, Health; Sedition, Sicknesse; and Civill war, Death.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

Lastly, the Pacts and Covenants, by which the parts of this Body Politique were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that Fiat, or the Let us make man, pronounced by God in the Creation.
The Introduction
Leviathan (1651)

Life , Death , God , War

“What becomes of human free will and agency? …it seems to me to involve one of the most admirable laws of conservation in nature—a law which presents a new proof of the wisdom of the Creator… It is necessary, then, to admit that free-will exercises itself within indefinite limits, if one wishes not to incur the reproach of denying it altogether. But, with all the follies which have passed through the head of man, with all the perverse inclinations which have desolated society, what would have become of our race during so many past ages? All these scourges have passed by, and neither man nor his faculties have undergone sensible alterations, as far at least as our observations can determine. This is because the same finger which has fixed limits to the sea, has set similar bounds to the passions of men—because the same voice has said to both, "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther!"”

Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist

Preface of M. Quetelet
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

Wisdom , Men , Age , Law

“Let us suppose that a man believes in eternal life on Christ’s word. In that case he believes without any fuss about being profound and searching and philosophical and racking his brains.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: 1840s, Two Ethical-Religious Minor Essays (1849), P. 103

Life , Search , Christ

Quotes about man page 86

Quotes about man
page 86