Men Quotes

Truly, to tell lies is not honorable but when the truth entails tremendous ruin, To speak dishonorably is pardonable.

Sophocles

Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment.

Elie Wiesel, The Perils of Indifference

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - Not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

I believe there is no source of deception in the investigation of nature which can compare with a fixed belief that certain kinds of phenomena are impossible.

William James

The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.

William Ellery Channing

Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.

Victor Marie Hugo

There are places and moments in which one is so completely alone that one sees the world entire.

Jules Renard

This is, I say, the time for all good men not to go to the aid of their party, but to come to the aid of their country.

Eugene McCarthy

Note how good you feel after you have encouraged someone else. No other argument is necessary to suggest that never miss the opportunity to give encouragement.

George Burton Adams

Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerve give to wisdom.

Mark Twain

Just as it would be madness to settle on medical treatment for the body of a person by taking an opinion poll of the neighbors, so it is irrational to prescribe for the body politic by polling the opinions of the people at large.

Plato

What you keep by you, you may change and mend but words, once spoken, can never be recalled.

Earl of Roscommon

The really happy man never laughs - Seldom - Though he may smile. He does not need to laugh, for laugther, like weeping is a relief of mental tension - And the happy are not over strung.

Prof. F. A. P. Aveling

Jails and prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more must you have of the former.

Horace Mann

A man is what he is, not what men say he is. His character no man can touch. His character is what he is before his God and his Judge; and only he himself can damage that. His reputations what men say he is. That can be damaged; but reputation is for time, character is for eternity.

John Ballantine Gough

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are not even capable of forming such opinions.

Albert Einstein

All great men are gifted with intuition. They know without reasoning or analysis, what they need to know.

Alexis Carrel

Some men see things as they are and say why I dream things that never were and say Why not.

Robert Francis Kennedy

Some of my best leading men have been dogs and horses.

Elizabeth Taylo

The teacher must derive not only the capacity, but the desire, to observe natural phenomena. The teacher must understand and feel her position of observer: the activity must lie in the phenomenon.

Maria Montessori

Women are at last becoming persons first and wives second, and that is as it should be.

May Sarton

Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping.

Jonathan Swift, Miscellanies, 1711

The function of government ought to be: make sure you have good water to drink, somebody picking up the garbage, good roads to drive on, enough electricity to turn your light bulbs and your record player on, and whatever smaller amounts of regulatory assistance is necessary to make this society work.

Frank Zappa, Interview with this submitter, New York City, 5/08/1980

When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat.

Henry Mille

You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument.

Samuel Johnson

Judgment is forced upon us by experience.

Johnson

I am not dying, not anymore than any of us are at any moment. We run, hopefully as fast as we can, and then everyone must stop. We can only choose how we handle the race.

Hugh Elliott, Standing Room Only weblog comments, 06 - 11 - 04

For the ordinary man is passive. Within a narrow circle home life, and perhaps the trade unions or local politics he feels himself master of his fate, but against major events he is as helpless as against the elements. So far from endeavouring to influence the future, he simply lies down and lets things happen to him.

George Orwell

I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it...

Learned Hand

A man who builds his own pedestal had better use strong cement.

Anna Quindlen

That all men are equal is a proposition which, at ordinary times, no sane individual has ever given his assent.

Aldous Huxley

The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions - The little, soon forgotten charities of a kiss or a smile, a kind look or heartfelt compliment.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Pointing out the comic elements of a situation can bring a sense of proportion and perspective to what might otherwise seem an overwhelming problem.

Harvey Mindess

Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.

Denis Diderot

Asking to meet with Italian businessmen instead of government officials. I want to talk to these people because they stay in power and you change all the time.

Nikita Khrushchev

Nothing shocks me more in the men of religion and their flocks than their pretensions to be the only religious people.

Jean Guehenno

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

If you wait for the perfect moment when all is safe and assured, it may never arrive. Mountains will not be climbed, races won, or lasting happiness achieved.

Maurice Chevalie