quotations about men
There is nothing alive more agonized than man of all that breathe and crawl across the earth.
HOMER
The Iliad
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
A man was like a child with his appetites. A woman had to yield him what he wanted, or like a child he would probably turn nasty and flounce away and spoil what was a very pleasant connection.
D. H. LAWRENCE
Lady Chatterley's Lover
Man, a wild beast, cousin of the gorilla, has emerged from the profound darkness of animal instinct into the light of the mind, which explains in a wholly natural way all his past mistakes and partially consoles us for his present errors.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
God and the State
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
Welcome to the mystery that is men. I think it goes something like, they grow body hair, they lose all ability to tell you what they really want.
BUFFY SUMMERS
"Phases", Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The only reason why God created man is because he was disappointed with the monkey.
MARK TWAIN
Autobiographical Dictation
Being a Man is always acting like a Man.
JOSEPH GREENE
The ComMANdments: The Official Guide Book to Man Rules
Men are unwise and curiously planned.
DORIS LESSING
The Cleft: A Novel
Man, only -- rash, refined, presumptuous man,
Starts from his rank, and mars creation's plan.
GEORGE CANNING
Progress of Man
Part of me loves and respects men so desperately, and part of me thinks they are so embarrassingly incompetent at life and in love. You have to teach them the very basics of emotional literacy. You have to teach them how to be there for you, and part of me feels tender toward them and gentle, and part of me is so afraid of them, afraid of any more violation.
ANNE LAMOTT
Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year
The reputation of a Don Juan gives to a man the most dangerous power. Wise virgins resist it, but foolish virgins frequently yield to the desire to take a celebrated lover from a rival -- even from a friend. This emotion is a complex one, mad up of vanity, respect for another woman's taste, and the need to establish self-assurance by winning a difficult victory. Don Juan chose his first mistresses; later he was chosen.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
An Art of Living
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
Every man is a volume if you know how to read him.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
Thoughts
Man started out on the wrong foot. The misadventure in paradise was the first consequence. The rest had to follow.
EMIL CIORAN
The Trouble with Being Born
Men are cowards before women until they become tyrants.
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
The Small House at Allington
Where man had been, in every place he left, garbage remained. Even in his pursuit of the ultimate truth and quest for his God, he produced garbage. By his garbage, which lay stratum upon stratum, he could always -- one had only to dig -- be known. For more long-lived than man is his refuse. Garbage alone lives after him.
GUNTER GRASS
The Rat
A man ought to carry himself in the world as an orange tree would if it could walk up and down in the garden--swinging perfume from every little censer it holds up to the air.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Man must be disciplined, for he is by nature raw and wild.
IMMANUEL KANT
Lectures on Ethics
I do like men who come out frankly and own that they are not gods.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Jo's Boys