Quotes on Men

The value of an idea has nothing whatever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.

When we understand that man is the only animal who must create meaning, who must open a wedge into neutral nature, we already understand the essence of love. Love is the problem of an animal who must find life, create a dialogue with nature in order to experience his own being.

The best friend on earth of man is the tree: When we use the tree respectfully and economically, we have one of the greatest resources of the earth.

What could be said about me...a man to whom only his painting matters? And of course his garden and his flowers as well.

If the earth is man's extended body, to be loved and respected as one's own body, those who do no greening of themselves will hardly bring about the greening of America. The idea of 'greening' involves color, flowering, freshness of spring, and, above all, respect for what is organic and vegetative as distinct from the mechanical and metallic.

The grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming, whose hands reach into the ground and sprout, to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.

I would rather have my ignorance than another man's knowledge, because I have so much of it.

The desire to know is natural to good men.

It is useless to attack men who could not be controlled even if conquered, while failure would leave us in an even worse position.

Modern war appears as a struggle led by all the State apparatuses and their general staffs against all men old enough to bear arms.

Man is the only animal that is cruel. It kills just for the sake of it.

The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is being attacked, and every man will be glad of these conscience-soothing falsities

If men do not now succeed in abolishing war, civilization and mankind are doomed.

Either man will abolish war, or war will abolish man.

In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will remain for some time mutinous and full of faction, until some popular general, who understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself. Armies will obey him on his personal account. There is no other way of securing military obedience in this state of things.

Now what is Judge Douglas Popular Sovereignty? It is, as a principle, no other than that, if one man chooses to make a slave of another man, neither that other man nor anybody else has a right to object.

Talk about slavery! It is not the peculiar institution of the South. It exists wherever men are bought and sold, wherever a man allows himself to be made a mere thing or a tool, and surrenders his inalienable rights of reason and conscience. Indeed, this slavery is more complete than that which enslaves the body alone.

If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or is a Gurkha.

Men tell us in these days that sin is what you think it is. Well, it is not. Sin is what God thinks it is. You may think according to your own conscience. God thinks according to His.

To stand in silence when they should be protesting makes cowards of men.

Pity the man who has a character to support - it is worse than a large family - he is silent poor indeed.