Quotes about man
page 96

John Quincy Adams photo

“Respect for his ancestors excites, in the breast of man, interest in their history, attachment to their characters, concern for their errors, involuntary pride in their virtues. Love for his posterity spurs him to exertion for their support, stimulates him to virtue for their example, and fills him with the tenderest solicitude for their welfare. Man, therefore, was not made for himself alone. No; he was made for his country, by the obligations of the social compact: he was made for his species, by the Christian duties of universal charity: he was made for all ages past, by the sentiment of reverence for his forefathers; and he was made for all future times, by the impulse of affection for his progeny. Under the influence of these principles, "Existence sees him spurn her bounded reign." They redeem his nature from the subjection of time and space: he is no longer a "puny insect shivering at a breeze;" he is the glory of creation, formed to occupy all time and all extent: bounded, during his residence upon earth, only by the boundaries of the world, and destined to life and immortality in brighter regions, when the fabric of nature itself shall dissolve and perish.”

John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)

He here quotes statements made about William Shakespeare by Samuel Johnson, and then one made in reference to Timon by Alexander Pope in Moral Essays.
Oration at Plymouth (1802)

Robert G. Ingersoll photo
John Mayer photo
Charles Mackay photo

“Old Tubal Cain was a man of might
In the days when earth was young.”

Charles Mackay (1814–1889) British writer

"Tubal Cain".
Legends of the Isles and Other Poems (1851)

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“For what are they all in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?”

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

Good Bye
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Variant: For what are they all in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?

Prince photo

“And I said, baby don't waste your time
I know what's on your mind
U wouldn't be satisfied with a one night stand
And I could never take the place of your man.”

Prince (1958–2016) American pop, songwriter, musician and actor

I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man
Song lyrics, Sign O' the Times (1987)

Gwynfor Evans photo
Wilfred Thesiger photo
John le Carré photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“The interiorization of the technology of the phonetic alphabet translates man from the magical world of the ear to the neutral visual world.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 21

Neville Chamberlain photo

“If ever that silly old man comes interfering here again with his umbrella, I'll kick him downstairs and jump on his stomach in front of the photographers.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Adolf Hitler after the Munich Agreement, quoted by Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, The Inner Circle Macmillan (1959), p. 135
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Jean Paul Sartre photo

“The live dead-man is dead as a producer and alive insofar as he consumes”

139
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

Abraham Joshua Heschel photo
Gary Johnson photo

“The man who is too old to learn was probably always too old to learn.”

Henry S. Haskins (1875–1957)

Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 74

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel photo
André Malraux photo

“The present age delights in unearthing a great man's secrets; for one thing because we like to temper our admiration and also perhaps we have a vague hope of finding a clue to genius in such "revelations."”

André Malraux (1901–1976) French novelist, art theorist and politician

Part III, Chapter VI
Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence] (1951)

A. James Gregor photo
Samuel Butler photo

“To the memory of Sir Thomas Denison, Knt., this monument was erected by his afflicted widow. He was an affectionate husband, a generous relation, a sincere friend, a good citizen, an honest man. Skilled in all the learning of the common law, he raised himself to great eminence in his profession; and showed by his practice, that a thorough knowledge of the legal art and form is not litigious, or an instrument of chicane, but the plainest, easiest, and shortest way to the end of strife. For the sake of the public he was pressed, and at the last prevailed upon, to accept the office of a judge in the Court of King's Bench. He discharged the important trust of that high office with unsuspected integrity, and uncommon ability. The clearness of his understanding, and the natural probity of his heart, led him immediately to truth, equity, and justice; the precision and extent of his legal knowledge enabled him always to find the right way of doing what was right. A zealous friend to the constitution of his country, he steadily adhered to the fundamental principle upon which it is built, and by which alone it can be maintained, a religious application of the inflexible rule of law to all questions concerning the power of the crown, and privileges of the subject. He resigned his office February 14, 1765, because from the decay of his health and the loss of his sight, he found himself unable any longer to execute it. He died September 8, 1765, without issue, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. He wished to be buried in his native country, and in this church. He lies here near the Lord Chief Justice Gascoigne, who by a resolute and judicious exertion of authority, supported law and government in a manner which has perpetuated his name, and made him an example famous to posterity.”

Thomas Denison (1699–1765) British judge (1699–1765)

Memorial inscription, reported in Edward Foss, The Judges of England, With Sketches of Their Lives (1864), Volume 8, p. 266-268.
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Colin Wilson photo
Francis Marion Crawford photo
John Ruskin photo

“Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

The Two Paths, Lecture II: The Unity of Art, section 54 (1859).

Dashiell Hammett photo

“If a man says a thing often enough, he is very likely to acquire some sort of faith in it sooner or later.”

Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961) American writer

"The Second-Story Angel" (published in Black Mask, 15 November 1923)
Short Stories

John Dos Passos photo
André Breton photo
Robert Jordan photo

“You cannot tell a man he has the power to make the earth shake, then expect him to walk small.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Mazrim Taim
(15 October 1994)

Tim Cook photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Hermann Samuel Reimarus photo
John Ireland (bishop) photo
Ferdinand Lundberg photo
Jean de La Bruyère photo
Daniel Handler photo
Hamid Dabashi photo
Edgar Rice Burroughs photo
Ben Jonson photo

“No one
Shall hunger: Man shall spend equally.
Our goal which we compel: Man shall be man.”

Stephen Spender (1909–1995) English poet and man of letters

"Not Palaces" (l. 23–25)

Michelle Obama photo
Leo Tolstoy photo

“Wealth is a great sin in the eyes of God. Poverty is a great sin in the eyes of man.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: Path of Life (1909), p. 86

H.L. Mencken photo

“The theory seems to be that so long as a man is a failure he is one of God's chillun, but that as soon as he has any luck he owes it to the Devil.”

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

1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay photo

“When a man is in doubt what to do, he goes wherever he happens to be first called.”

Kopal-Kundala, Chapter IV: With the Kapálik translated by Henry Arthur Deuteros Phillips (1885)

Jacques Derrida photo
Keshub Chunder Sen photo
Anders Nygren photo
George Henry Lewes photo
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex photo

“[ William Tyndale is a man] replete with venomous envy, rancour and malice.”

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (1485–1540) English statesman and chief minister to King Henry VIII of England

Letter to Stephen Vaughan after May 1531. (Merriman, i. p. 335.)

Ken Ham photo
George Herbert photo

“1. Man proposeth, God disposeth.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Brian W. Aldiss photo

“You were fool enough to think that one hundred and fifty million years either way made an ounce of difference to the muddle of thoughts in a man’s cerebral vortex.”

Brian W. Aldiss (1925–2017) British science fiction author

“Poor Little Warrior!” p. 78
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

Piero Manzoni photo
David Icke photo

“Credo Mutwa, the most knowledgeable man i have ever had the honor of knowing.”

David Icke (1952) English writer and public speaker

Source: The Biggest Secret, 1998

Samuel Johnson photo

“A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

August 16, 1773
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)

John Davies (poet) photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
Marie-Louise von Franz photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo

“Out of love, God becomes man. He says: "See, here is what it is to be a human being."”

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

Source: 1840s, The Sickness unto Death (July 30, 1849), p. 161

Thomas Carlyle photo
David Norris photo
Charles Darwin photo
Hermann Hesse photo
John Hirst photo
Pope Benedict XVI photo

“If technical progress is not matched by corresponding progress in man's ethical formation, in man's inner growth, then it is not progress at all, but a threat for man and for the world.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI to the Bishops Priests and Deacons Men and Women Religious and All the Lay Faithful On Christian Hope, 30 November 2007
2007

Paramahansa Yogananda photo
Robert Maynard Hutchins photo
Herman Melville photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo

“You know how much I admire Che Guevara. In fact, I believe that the man was not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age: as a fighter and as a man, as a theoretician who was able to further the cause of revolution by drawing his theories from his personal experience in battle.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

As quoted in Marianne Sinclair's !Viva Che!: Contributions in Tribute to Ernesto 'Che' Guevara (1968)

Maimónides photo

“Sex and politics - sex and politicians. I never understand how any politician gets a shag, really. Can you? A classic example: the David Mellor sex scandal. I bet you're the same as me. We're not shocked by these scandals involving politicians. I bet when that happened, your response was not 'Good God, that's outrageous! A man in his job, he should be running the country, not messing about like this; no wonder we're in a state; terrible!' No, that wasn't the response. You open the paper, you read about that, and you go 'Ha ha ha ha - I don't think so, Dave! I don't think so. In your dreams, perhaps.' The interesting person in that relationship is not him; it's her - Antonia. A woman of mystery; a mystery woman. Antonia de Sancha, always described as an 'unemployed actress'. Unemployed actress? How's she an unemployed actress? God! if you can feign sexual interest in David Mellor, I should think Chekhov's a piece of piss. So, she thinks 'I'm an actress. It's a role. I'll prepare'. She gets to the bedroom situation. He's in a kit-off situation, and there's Antonia giving it 'Red lorry, yellow lorry - Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper'. But the hair - that's the main unattractive thing. What barber told him that suited him? Someone winding him up there. 'Yes, David, that'll suit you, mate: a greasy, oily flap of dirty-looking patent leather, wafting about down one side of your moosh; that'll drive those unemployed actresses mental!' (Linda Live, 1993)”

Linda Smith (1958–2006) comedian

Stand-up

Robert A. Heinlein photo
Erich Ludendorff photo
William Lane Craig photo
William Makepeace Thackeray photo

“Yes, I am a fatal man, Madame Fribsbi. To inspire hopeless passion is my destiny.”

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) novelist

Source: The History of Pendennis (1848-1850), Ch. 23.

Julie Gold photo
Potter Stewart photo

“She said he was a man who cheated.
He said she didn't play the game.
She said an expletive deleted.
He said the undeleted same.
And so they ended their relation
With meaningful communication.”

J. V. Cunningham (1911–1985) American writer

"Jack and Jill", 1981
The Poems of J. V. Cunningham, edited by Timothy Steele, Ohio University Press/Swallow Press, 1997, ISBN 0-804-00997-X
Other poetry

Joseph Strutt photo
E. W. Howe photo

“Another thing which is about as sure as death and taxes, is that no man can go on bluffing indefinitely without being called.”

E. W. Howe (1853–1937) Novelist, magazine and newspaper editor

Country Town Sayings (1911), p261.

David Berg photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments.”

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

1830s, The American Scholar http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm (1837)

Homér photo
Anna Akhmatova photo
Yevgeniy Chazov photo
Hesiod photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters,—a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.”

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

1830s, The American Scholar http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm (1837)

Winston S. Churchill photo
F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead photo

“May I be perfectly candid? I also am still a Unionist in this sense. If I were certified of twenty years of unbroken power in this country, I am still most clearly of opinion that the solution of the Irish question which would be best for England and best for Ireland would be the prosecution during that period of the policy which, in our opinion at least, had attained so large a measure of success in the year 1906. In saying this I make it quite plain that I am conscious that there are many of my colleagues—there must be many of my colleagues—who would not take that view. You must make the reservation that you are given that power and that you are given that power for the requisite period. The late Lord Salisbury spoke of "twenty years of resolute government." The Unionist Party, in the period to the close of which I refer, had been given some ten years, and it was only given those ten years by what many members of this House would describe as the accident of the issue, with its repercussion on the Election, of the war in South Africa. That accident and that Election gave the Unionist Party some ten years of office. Is it not evident, in trying to descry what lies in front of us through the mists of the future, that no man living can claim that twenty years, or anything like twenty years, lie in front of any Party that believes in the maintenance of the relations between Ireland and this country on the lines that have existed since the passing of the Act of Union?”

F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead (1872–1930) British politician

Speech in the House of Lords http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1920/nov/23/government-of-ireland-bill on the Government of Ireland Bill (23 November 1920).

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
John Hicks photo