Quotes on Men

Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.

When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence.

He reads much; He is a great observer and he looks Quite through the deeds of men: he loves no plays, As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music; Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort As if he mock'd himself and scorn'd his spirit That could be moved to smile at any thing. Such men as he be never at heart's ease Whiles they behold a greater than themselves, And therefore are they very dangerous.

He who has talent in him must be purer in soul than anyone else. Another will be forgiven much, but to him it will not be forgiven. A man who leaves the house in bright, festive clothes needs only one drop of mud splashed from under a wheel, and people all surround him, point their fingers at him, and talk about his slovenliness, while the same people ignore many spots on other passers-by who are wearing everyday clothes. For on everyday clothes the spots do not show.

Opinions have vested interests just as men have.

What, I should only trust good people? Man, good people get bought and sold every day. Might as well trust somebody evil once in a while, it makes no more or less sense.

So long as men praise you, you can only be sure that you are not yet on your own true path but on someone else's.

The knowledge of the cross brings a conflict of interest between God who has become man and man who wishes to become God.

Man is such a wondrous being that it is never possible to count up all his merits at once. The more you study him, the more new particulars appear, and their description would be endless.

I felt the first man I slept with must be intelligent, so I could respect him.

One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.

Letters are like wine; if they are sound they ripen with keeping. A man should lay down letters as he does a cellar of wine.

For a moment, I believe, there was a stillness. A shocking realization by all things - beetles, dormice, the spiders spinning their webs in the moonlight, even the hot metal of the tracks and the wind in the trees - that Death had just shrieked past like a stinking black eagle and made off with a remarkable man.

A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.

Man is a rational animal – so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favour of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents.

Let man be true and every god a liar.

...the essential intention is the real sin. A man who cannot choose ceases to be a man.

In the eyes of others a man is a poet if he has written one good poem. In his own he is only a poet at the moment when he is making his last revision to a new poem. The moment before, he was still only a potential poet; the moment after, he is a man who has ceased to write poetry, perhaps forever.

Is life worth living? This is a question for an embryo not for a man.

There is no fair in life and death. If it were, no good men would die young.

We are not won by arguments that we can analyse but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself.