quotations about men
If Man be the Index or Epitomy of the World, as Philosophers tell us, we have only to read our selves well to be learned in it.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
It is far easier to know men than to know man.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
Men, like musical instruments, seem made to be played upon.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
[Man] attaches himself to woman -- not to enjoy her, but to enjoy himself.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
The Second Sex
Even the most staid and respectable husband likes for his wife to think he is a devil among the women.
ROBERT ELLIOTT GONZALES
Poems and Paragraphs
I sometimes think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated His ability.
OSCAR WILDE
The Wit of Oscar Wilde
Man and animals are in reality vehicles and conduits of food, tombs of animals, hostels of Death, coverings that consume, deriving life by the death of others.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
Men never try to pass themselves off for that which they are not, unless they expect to accomplish something desirable thereby.
J. B. RIPLEY
Plain Words to Young Men
There is so much that is deaf and dumb in man, and so much that is paralyzed, so much that is shrunken, that nothing short of a miraculous touch of re-creation can make them at death perfect beings.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
If a girl as smart as yourself really wants to dig into the matter and truly get to know the nature of men and therefore boys, let me save you a lot of time and effort that you would otherwise spend trying to evaluate their intellectual motivations, their emotional states, and the reasons behind their inexplicable behavior. The thing to do is to take the anthropological view, try to concentrate on just how it is that they develop into the people they are: that is to say, thinly veiled sperm distributors. It will open up a wealth of answers. An ocean of understanding. And all you have to do is look down.
GWEN MACSAI
Lipshtick
How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man!...
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
But that is how men are! Ungrateful and never satisfied. When you don't have them they hate you because you won't; and when you do have them they hate you again, for some other reason. Or for no reason at all, except that they are discontented children, and can't be satisfied whatever they get, let a woman do what she may.
D. H. LAWRENCE
Lady Chatterley's Lover
The Spirit of man is like a kite, which rises by means of those very forces which seem to oppose its rise; the tie that joins it to the earth, the opposing winds of temptation, and the weight of earth-born affections which it carries with it into the sky.
COVENTRY PATMORE
The Rod, the Root, and the Flower
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
Man is nothing but surprise, contradiction, incoherence, and folly.
OCTAVE MIRBEAU
The Diary of a Chambermaid
Men are not taught how to be lovers, to be expressive, to share, to show affection, and to become companions. As do all human beings, men have the capacity to love, but this capacity is not developed.... Because men are taught how to be workers and to be bosses, their gender identities do not respect their feminine sides.
IAN M. HARRIS
Messages Men Hear: Constructing Masculinities
Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Übermensch--a rope over an abyss.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
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
Women always think you need a man, you need a father, as if they'd be the slightest use. Men are a dead weight, they're clumsy and maladjusted.
YASMINA REZA
The God of Carnage
Even in hell, if a man was a man, you'd know it.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENET
"The Devil and Daniel Webster"