Quotes on Men

Good name in man and woman is the immediate jewel of their souls.

When one of your children tells a lie, be honest with him; tell him that you have told hundreds of them yourself. Tell him it is not the best way; that you have tried it. Tell him as the man did in Maine when his boy left home: "John, honesty is the best policy; I have tried both."

I have made up my mind that if there is a God, he will be merciful to the merciful. Upon that rock I stand. That he will not torture the forgiving. Upon that rock I stand. That every man should be true to himself, and that there is no world, no star in which honesty is a crime. Upon that rock I stand.

An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.

You can cheat an honest man but not make a fool out of him.

Absolutely speaking, Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you is by no means a golden rule, but the best of current silver. An honest man would have but little occasion for it. It is golden not to have any rule at all in such a case.

An honest private man often grows cruel and abandoned when converted into an absolute prince. Give a man power of doing what he pleases with impunity, you extinguish his fear, and consequently overturn in him one of the great pillars of morality.

It is possible that the scrupulously honest man may not grow rich so fast as the unscrupulous and dishonest one; but the success will be of a truer kind, earned without fraud or injustice. And even though a man should for a time be unsuccessful, still he must be honest: better lose all and save character. For character is itself a fortune. . . .

Over the times thou hast no power. . . . Solely over one man thou hast quite absolute power. Him redeem and make honest.

For thus the royal mandate ran, When first the human race began, "The social, friendly honest man, Whate'er he be, Tis he fulfils great Nature's plan, And none but he!"

No man can have society upon his own terms.

Heroism is the divine relation which, in all times, unites a great man to other men.

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Life at court does not satisfy a man, but it keeps him from being satisfied with anything else.

A tool is but the extension of a man's hand, and a machine is but a complex tool. And he that invents a machine augments the power of a man and the well-being of mankind.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

The task of the solitary man is to be even more solitary.

No man is straitly honest to any but himself and God.

Man cannot really improve himself without improving others.

Of all the animals, man is the only one that lies.

Man finds nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of complete rest, without passions, without occupation, without diversion, without effort. Then he feels his nullity, loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, emptiness.