quotations about men
A man is nothing but breath and shadow.
SOPHOCLES
fragment, Ajax the Locrian
In the ardor of his enthusiasm, a youth set forth in quest of a man of whom he might take counsel as to his future, but after long search and many disappointments, he came near relinquishing the pursuit as hopeless, when suddenly it occurred to him that one must first be a man to find a man, and profiting by this suggestion, he set himself to the work of becoming himself the man he had been seeking so long and fruitlessly.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
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
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man",
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
"The Conqueror Worm"
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
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
Men changed whatever they set hand to. They wrought their magic on beasts, to make them dull and patient. They brought fire and the reek of smoke to the dales. They brought lines and order to the curve of the hills. Most of all they brought the chill of iron, to sweep away the ancient shadows.
C. J. CHERRYH
The Dreamstone
I don't understand men. I don't even understand what I don't understand about men.
MAUREEN DOWD
Are Men Necessary?
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
But man crouches and blushes,
Absconds and conceals;
He creepeth and peepeth,
He palters and steals;
Infirm, melancholy,
Jealous glancing around,
An oaf, an accomplice,
He poisons the ground.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The Sphinx
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
I don't know what a man is. Only that every man has his price.
BERTOLD BRECHT
The Exception and the Rule
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
A controlling man, surely a mythical creature?
E. L. JAMES
Fifty Shades Darker
There is nothing alive more agonized than man of all that breathe and crawl across the earth.
HOMER
The Iliad
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
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
Men are foolish to expect us to revere them, when, in the end, they amount to almost nothing.
PAULINE RÉAGE
introduction, The Image
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
The right boys i always toss and the wrong ones i keep on top of me like paperweights.
DANIEL HANDLER
Adverbs