MEN QUOTES V

quotations about men

A controlling man, surely a mythical creature?

E. L. JAMES

Fifty Shades Darker

Tags: E. L. James


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

Tags: Charles Caleb Colton


If I were granted omnipotence, and millions of years to experiment in, I should not think Man much to boast of as the final result of all my efforts.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

Religion and Science

Tags: Bertrand Russell


I don't know what a man is. Only that every man has his price.

BERTOLD BRECHT

The Exception and the Rule

Tags: Bertolt Brecht


This is man: a writer of books, a putter-down of words, a painter of pictures, a maker of ten thousand philosophies. He grows passionate over ideas, he hurls scorn and mockery at another's work, he finds the one way, the true way, for himself, and calls all others false--yet in the billion books upon the shelves there is not one that can tell him how to draw a single fleeting breath in peace and comfort. He makes histories of the universe, he directs the destiny of the nations, but he does not know his own history, and he cannot direct his own destiny with dignity or wisdom for ten consecutive minutes.

THOMAS WOLFE

You Can't Go Home Again

Tags: Thomas Wolfe


Man's unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his greatness; it is because there is an Infinite of him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite.

THOMAS CARLYLE

Sartor Resartus

Tags: Thomas Carlyle


Ah, race of mortal men,
How as a thing of nought
I count ye, though ye live;
For who is there of men
That more of blessing knows,
Than just a little while
To seem to prosper well,
And, having seemed, to fall?

SOPHOCLES

Oedipus the King

Tags: Sophocles


Men would like monogamy better if it sounded less like monotony.

RITA RUDNER

stand-up routine

Tags: Rita Rudner


Men are foolish to expect us to revere them, when, in the end, they amount to almost nothing.

PAULINE RÉAGE

introduction, The Image

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The hardest man ... is but a shell.

KEN KESEY

Sometimes a Great Notion

Tags: Ken Kesey


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

Tags: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


You men never can understand ... that, however fond a woman may be of a man, there are times when he palls upon her. You don't know how I long to be able sometimes to put on my bonnet and go out, with nobody to ask me where I am going, why I am going, how long I am going to be, and when I shall be back. You don't know how I sometimes long to order a dinner that I should like, and that the children would like, but at the sight of which you would put on your hat and be off to the Club. You don't know how much I feel inclined sometimes to invite some woman here that I like, and that I know you don't; to go and see the people that I want to see, to go to bed when I am tired, and to get up when I feel I want to get up.

JEROME KLAPKA JEROME

Three Men in a Boat

Tags: Jerome K. Jerome


They do not believe there can be tears between men. They think we are only playing a game and that we do it to shock them.

JAMES BALDWIN

Another Country

Tags: James Baldwin


The toolmakers had been remade by their own tools. For in using clubs and flints, their hands had developed a dexterity found nowhere else in the animal kingdom, permitting them to make still better tools, which in turn had developed their limbs and brains yet further. It was an accelerating, cumulative process; and at its end was Man.

ARTHUR C. CLARKE

2001: A Space Odyssey

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I draw no petty social lines. A man to me is a man, wherever I find him.

WILLIAM FAULKNER

The Sound and the Fury

Tags: William Faulkner


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

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What would men be without women? Scarce, sir, mighty scarce.

MARK TWAIN

Mark Twain on Common Sense

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I do like men who come out frankly and own that they are not gods.

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Jo's Boys

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Women were brought up to believe that men were the answer. They weren't. They weren't even one of the questions.

JULIAN BARNES

A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters

Tags: Julian Barnes


Man must be disciplined, for he is by nature raw and wild.

IMMANUEL KANT

Lectures on Ethics

Tags: Immanuel Kant