Quotes on Men

A man on a horse is spiritually, as well as physically, bigger then a man on foot.

To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?

The wise man will not pardon any crime that ought to be punished, but he will accomplish, in a nobler way, all that is sought in pardoning. He will spare some and watch over some, because of their youth, and others on account of their ignorance. His clemency will not fall short of justice, but will fulfill it perfectly.

Believe nothing because it is written in books. Believe nothing because wise men say it is so. Believe nothing because it is religious doctrine. Believe it only because you yourself know it to be true.

It is better to be wise, and not to seem so, than to seem wise, and not be so; yet men, for the most part, desire the contrary.

Since all of us desire to be happy, and since we evidently become so on account of our use—that is our good use—of other things, and since knowledge is what provides this goodness of use and also good fortune, every man must, as seems plausible, prepare himself by every means for this: to be as wise as possible. Right?

The wise man makes an island of himself that no flood can overwhelm.

A world full of happiness is not beyond human power to create; the obstacles imposed by inanimate nature are not insuperable. The real obstacles lie in the heart of man, and the cure for these is a firm hope, informed and fortified by thought.

Let no man be called happy before his death. Till then, he is not happy, only lucky.

She knew that the horse, born to serve nobly, had waited in vain for someone noble to serve. His spirit knew that nobility had gone out of men.

Earth and sea merged, the sea tossed itself in the air in a fantastic dance, into the shapes of men and horses and tattered banners. I stood in the lee of an overhanging rock and thought of many things.

I have not permitted myself, gentlemen, to conclude that I am the best man in the country; but I am reminded, in this connection, of a story of an old Dutch farmer, who remarked to a companion once that "it was not best to swap horses when crossing streams."

Beware of the man whose God is in the skies.

Fools call wise men fools. A wise man never calls any man a fool.

A wise man does not chatter with one whose mind is sick.

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.

Men and women, old and young, married and single, were ranked with horses, sheep, and swine

Away with the cant of 'Measures not men!'-the idle supposition that it is the harness and not the horses that draw the chariot along.

Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.

A fool sees himself as another, but a wise man sees others as himself.

Search men's governing principles, and consider the wise, what they shun and what they cleave to.