quotations about men
Alas! What is man? Whether he be deprived of that light which is from on high, of whether he discard it, a frail and trembling creature; standing on time, that bleak and narrow isthmus between two eternities, he sees nothing but impenetrable darkness on the one hand, and doubt, distrust, and conjecture, still more perplexing, on the other. Most gladly would he take an observation, as to whence he has come, or whither he is going; alas, he has not the means: his telescope is too dim, his compass too wavering, his plummet too short.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Again Creb grunted. It was the usual noncommittal comment used by men when responding to a woman. It carried only enough meaning to indicate the woman had been understood, without acknowledging too much significance in what she said.
JEAN M. AUEL
The Clan of the Cave Bear
No one has any right to be angry with me, if I think fit to enumerate man among the quadrapeds. Man is neither a stone nor a plant, but an animal, for such is his way of living and moving; nor is he a worm, for then he would have only one foot; nor an insect, for then he would have antennae; nor a fish, for he has no fins; nor a bird, for he has no wings. Therefore, he is a quadraped, had a mouth like that of other quadrapeds, and finally four feet, on two of which he goes, and uses the other two for prehensive purposes.
CARL LINNAEUS
Fauna Suecica
Men might be better if we better deemed
Of them. The worst way to improve the world
Is to condemn it.
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Festus
Man is said to be a rational creature; but should it not rather be said, that man is a creature capable of being rational, as we say a parrot is a creature capable of speech?
FULKE GREVILLE
Maxims, Characters and Reflections
Like it or not the role of masculinity is changing and many men are like a deer in headlights and don't which way to turn.
CHRIS FORTE
"Grateful: The Good Men Project Community", The Good Men Project, August 4, 2017
It takes a man to know men and all the wickedness mixed up in their flesh and blood.
AMELIA E. BARR
A Singer from the Sea
It is desperately hard these days for an average child to grow up to be a man, for our present organized system does not want men. They are not safe.
PAUL GOODMAN
Growing Up Absurd
All men are just accumulations dolls stuffed with sawdust swept up from the trash heaps where all previous dolls had been thrown away.
WILLIAM FAULKNER
The Sound and the Fury
What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment. And just the same shall be man to the Übermensch: a laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
There is nothing alive more agonized than man of all that breathe and crawl across the earth.
HOMER
The Iliad
Man would not be the finest creature in the world if he were not too fine for it.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But if the universe were to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this.
REBECCA WEST
The Thinking Reed
I don't know what a man is. Only that every man has his price.
BERTOLD BRECHT
The Exception and the Rule
Any live man is better than any dead man but no live or dead man is very much better than any other live or dead man.
WILLIAM FAULKNER
The Sound and the Fury
We are socialized into thinking that men are like wine -- they get better with time. Women are like cheese -- they get blue veins and start to stink.
MONA CHALABI
"Why I refuse to date an older man", The Straits Times, October 22, 2017
The right boys i always toss and the wrong ones i keep on top of me like paperweights.
DANIEL HANDLER
Adverbs
The menfolk, they die, all right. And it's us women who walk around, like the Bible says, and mourn. The menfolk, they die, and it's over for them, but we women, we have to keep on living and try to forget what they done to us.
JAMES BALDWIN
Go Tell It on the Mountain
The hardest man ... is but a shell.
KEN KESEY
Sometimes a Great Notion
Men are always ready to die for us, but not to make our lives worth having. Cheap sentiment and bad logic.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Jo's Boys