quotations about men
Man is improvable.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
Men are like avocados. They're not ripe, they're not ripe, they're not ripe.... Then they're suddenly very ripe, and then they go bad.
RACHEL RACZKA
"Will people start becoming single again in their mid-30s? Don't count on it.", Washington Post, August 8, 2017
When God made man she was practicing.
RITA MAE BROWN
Cat on the Scent
I've never gone anywhere where the men have come up to my infantile expectations. I always have gone through life constantly being surprised by the extreme, marvelous qualities of a small minority of men. But I can't see the rest of them. They seem awful rubbish.
REBECCA WEST
The Paris Review, spring 1981
Might not most men be as well named boys grown old.
FULKE GREVILLE
Maxims, Characters and Reflections
Man, if he compare himself with all that he can see, is at the zenith of power; but if he compare himself with all that he can conceive, he is at the nadir of weakness.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Even in hell, if a man was a man, you'd know it.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENET
"The Devil and Daniel Webster"
Men aren't allowed to have self-esteem, because we're already supposed to have all the power.... But most men earn less than they want, barely the minimum wage. They're drones. They do stuff they don't want to do to support their families, and they're not sure why they do it. They don't know what they're doing half the time, and any time we stick up for ourselves, we're pigs because we don't know how to articulate our frustrations and joys.
TIM ALLEN
Parade Magazine, October 27, 2002
All men seemed to be self-serving, selfish, insensitive pigs, just waiting for an opportunity to act like greater self-serving, selfish, insensitive pigs.
DAN SIMMONS
Ilium
Man is nothing but surprise, contradiction, incoherence, and folly.
OCTAVE MIRBEAU
The Diary of a Chambermaid
Most women use more brains picking a horse in the third at Belmont than they do picking a husband.
LAUREN BACALL
How to Marry a Millionaire
I sometimes think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated His ability.
OSCAR WILDE
The Wit of Oscar Wilde
My! ain't men blinder'n moles?
AMY LOWELL
"Reaping", Men, Women and Ghosts
How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man!...
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Übermensch--a rope over an abyss.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
He who is infatuated with Man leaves persons out of account so far as that infatuation extends, and floats in an ideal, sacred interest. Man, you see, is not a person, but an ideal, a spook.
MAX STIRNER
The Ego and Its Own
The whole shadow of Man is only as big as his hat.
ELIZABETH BISHOP
North & South
Many women I know think the ideal of happiness is to be in love with a great man, or to be the wife of a great public success; to share his triumph! They forget you share the man as well!
ADA LEVERSON
Tenterhooks
Real men don't use instructions, son. Besides, this is just the manufacturer's opinion on how to put this together.
TIM ALLEN
Home Improvement
[Man] attaches himself to woman -- not to enjoy her, but to enjoy himself.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
The Second Sex