quotations about men
Man the sum of what have you. A problem in impure properties carried tediously to an unvarying nil: stalemate of dust and desire.
WILLIAM FAULKNER
The Sound and the Fury
It always amazes me how many women like dangerous men. Men who almost from the moment you meet them, you know are bad news. Me, I prefer my men kinder, gentler, nice. Niceness is highly underrated by most people.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Obsidian Butterfly
Men were only made into "men" with great difficulty even in primitive society: the male is not naturally "a man" any more than the woman. He has to be propped up into that position with some ingenuity, and is always likely to collapse.
WYNDHAM LEWIS
"Call Yourself a Man!", The Art of Being Ruled
Man is concentric: you have to take fold after fold off of him before you get to the centre of his personality. You must get below his animal nature, habits, customs, affections, daily life, and sometimes go away down into the heart of the man, before you know what is really in him. But when you get into the last core of these concentric rings of personality you find a sense of the infinite--a consciousness of immortality linked to something higher and better.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
When God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
Blood Meridian
Nothing is more appealing than a handsome man who is also uncertain of himself. It appeals not only to the woman in us all, but the mother. A dangerous combination.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Guilty Pleasures
Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the same choice we've always had: work or prison.
TIM ALLEN
attributed, The Mammoth Book of Comic Quotes
One can't love man without hating most of the creatures who pretend to bear his name.
AYN RAND
The Fountainhead
Man is so intelligent that he feels impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations. So that when he acts on his theories, he behaves very often like a lunatic.
ALDOUS HUXLEY
Texts and Pretexts
I've studied men from my topsy-turvy
Close, and I reckon, rather true.
Some are fine fellows: some, right scurvy;
Most, a dash between the two.
GEORGE MEREDITH
"Juggling Jerry"
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And, yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling, you seem to say so.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
Who hail thee, Man! the pilgrim of the day,
Spouse of the worm, and brother of the clay.
THOMAS CAMPBELL
Pleasures of Hope
Men didn't respect beauty ... they used it.
NORA ROBERTS
Montana Sky
Man has gone long enough, or even too long, without being man enough to face the simple truth that the trouble with Man is Man.
JAMES THURBER
Lanterns & Lances
Every man I meet wants to protect me. I can't figure out what from.
MAE WEST
The Wit and Wisdom of Mae West
Man is the only animal that refuses to be what he is.
ALBERT CAMUS
The Rebel
Physically, man is but an atom in space, and a pulsation in time. Spiritually, the entire outward universe receives significance from him, and the scope of his existence stretches beyond the stars.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Men are like a good song. You may listen to it and sing it in your head in the beginning, but after a while, it's the same ole tune.
MARYANN REID
Sex and the Single Sister
All men are boys time is trying to outsmart.
JOHN UPDIKE
Rabbit Redux
It's funny what they say about men in uniform -- how people think women just can't resist 'em. Fact is, I think we're just pleased to see a man groomed, bathed, and wearing clothes that fit him.
CHERIE PRIEST
Dreadnought