quotations about men
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
Some of the wildest men make the best pets.
MAE WEST
Belle of the Nineties
Men would like monogamy better if it sounded less like monotony.
RITA RUDNER
stand-up routine
Man is not only the supreme result of evolution thus far, -- he is the final result of evolution; there is nothing beyond him. If one asks, How do we know that there may not be something inconceivable to us beyond? the answer is, We cannot know; but in our attempt to unriddle the enigma of the universe we must think with our faculties and be governed by our limitations, and we can conceive nothing higher than man. We can conceive of man infinitely improved; we can conceive of him cultivated, developed, enlarged, enriched, purified; but of anything essentially higher than man -- no. Nothing can be conceived higher than to think, to will, to love. If we look back along the pages of history, these two truths we have learned from the universe: first, that all its processes have been for the purpose of manifesting One who thinks, who wills, who loves; second, that the purpose in the manifestation of this One is the creation of a race of free moral agents, who can themselves think and will and love. The inorganic world existed before the vegetable, and the vegetable world existed before the animal, and the lower animal existed before man, but man exists for nothing beyond. The very topmost round of the ladder has been reached: to know right from wrong, to do the right and eschew the wrong, to understand invisible distinctions, to perceive the invisible world, to struggle toward something higher and yet higher, and yet always to know, to resolve, to love, -- this is supreme.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
Believe me, the world always was, and always will be the same, as long as men are men.
GEORGE BERKELEY
Alciphron; or, The Minute Philosopher in Seven Dialogues
Of all that Heaven produces and nourishes, there is none so great as man.
CONFUCIUS
The Wisdom of Confucius
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
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
A hard man is good to find.
MAE WEST
attributed, She Always Knew How: Mae West, a Personal Biography
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
It's hard to resist a bad boy who's a good man.
NORA ROBERTS
Happy Ever After
I have been thinking, my love, and on my return,
I would like to reveal the truth of us, of myself.
I am tired of this restrictive masculine role.
CHRIS ABANI
Hands Washing Water
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
No man ever reaches manhood
till a woman's tenderness
Is a part of his possession.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"The Conquerors"
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
The world in the evening seems fraught with the absence of promise, if you are a married man. There is nothing to do but go home and drink your nine drinks and forget about it.
DONALD BARTHELME
"Critique de la Vie Quotidienne"
I do like men who come out frankly and own that they are not gods.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Jo's Boys
Here's all you have to know about men and women: women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid.
GEORGE CARLIN
When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?
Men don't settle down because of the right woman. They settle down because they are finally ready for it. Whatever woman they're dating when they get ready is the one they settle down with, not necessarily the best one or the prettiest, just the one who happened to be on hand when the time got to be right.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
A Kiss of Shadows