Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be. George Orwell
Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness. George Orwell
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which. George Orwell, Animal Farm
Each man is the smith of his own fortune. Appius Claudius Caecus
What ought a man to be? Well, my short answer is ‘himself’. Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt, 1867
Take the life-lie away from the average man and straight away you take away his happiness. Henrik Ibsen, The Wild Duck, 1884
For man is man and master of his fate. Alfred Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King
Fill the cup, and fill the can:
Have a rouse before the morn:
Every moment dies a man,
Every moment one is born. Alfred Lord Tennyson
Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours its own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor. Thomas Jefferson, letter 1787
The tallest man in medical history for whom there is irrefutable evidence is Robert Pershing Wadlow (USA) who when last measured on 27 June 1940 was 2.72m (8 feet 11.1 in) tall. Guinness World Records 2005 (50th edition)
The shortest mature human of whom there is independent evidence was Gul Mohammed: On July 1990 he was examined at Ram Manohar Hospital, New Delhi, India, and found to measure a height of 57 cm (22.5 in) ibid.
The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains
Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man
Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless,
Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king
Over himself; just, gentle, wise: but man
Passionless? – no, yet free from guilt or pain,
Which were, for his will made or suffered them,
Nor yet exempt, though ruling them like slaves,
From chance, and death, and mutability,
The clogs of that which else might oversoar
The loftiest star of unascended heaven,
Pinnacled dim in the intense inane. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man. William Wordsworth, Lines Written in Early Spring 1798
But Thy most dreaded instrument,
In working out a pure intent,
Is man – arrayed for mutual slaughter, –
Yea, Carnage is thy daughter! William Wordsworth, ‘Ode. The Morning of the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving’
Man is quite insane. He wouldn’t know how to create a maggot, and he creates gods by the dozen. Montaigne aka Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, Essais, 1580
There is no man, good as he may be, who, if all his thoughts and actions were submitted to the scrutiny of the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life. ibid.
Men! The only animal in the world to fear! D H Lawrence, Mountain Lion, 1923
But that is how men are! Ungrateful and never satisfied. When you don’t have them they hate you because you won’t; and when you do have them they hate you again, for some other reason. Or for no reason at all, except that they are discontented children, and can’t be satisfied whatever they get, let a woman do what she may. D H Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover
A man of great common sense and good taste, meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage. George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra, notes
Every man over forty is a scoundrel. George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman
It is easy – terribly easy – to shake a man’s faith in himself. To take advantage of that to break a man’s spirit is devil’s work. George Bernard Shaw, Candida, 1898
With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two. Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Man is a creature who lives not upon bread alone, but principally by catchwords. Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque 1881
Man is an embodied paradox, a bundle of contradictions. Charles Caleb Colton, 1780-1832, Lacon, 1820
Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death unto the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden. John Milton, Paradise Lost
Did I request thee, Maker from my clay
To mould Me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me? ibid. X 743–5
Yet he who reigns within himself, and rules
Passions, Desires, and Fears, is more than King. John Milton, Paradise Regain’d II:466 - 467
The more one gets to know of men, the more one values dogs. Alphonse Toussenel, L’Esprit des Betes, 1847
I am as free as nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran. John Dryden, 1631-1700, The Conquest of Granada
Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense,
But good men starve for want of impudence. John Dryden, Constantine the Great
Man is formed for society. William Blackstone
Good Lord, what is man! for as simple he looks,
Do but try to develop his hooks and his crooks,
With his depths and his shallows, his good and his evil,
All in all he’s a problem must puzzle the devil. Robert Burns, Sketch in Verse
The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley. Robert Burns, To a Mouse
Nae man can tether time or tide. Robert Burns, Tam o’Shanter
A man’s a man for a’ that. Robert Burns, Leerics
Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of the concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor … not that men are wicked … but that men know so little of men. W E B du Bois, 1868-1963
Years ago, manhood was an opportunity for achievement, and now it is a problem to be overcome. Garrison Keillor, The Book of Guys, 1994
To say, for example, that a man is made up of certain chemical elements is a satisfactory description only for those who intend to use him as a fertilizer. H J Muller, Science and Criticism, 1943
All men are male chauvinists. Poor dears. Jane Fonda, interview BBC 1970
Man is what he eats. Ludwig Feuerbach, 1804-72, German philosopher
Our language lacks words to express this offence, the demolition of a man. Primo Levi, If This is a Man, 1958, re year in Auschwitz
A man can do all things if he will: how naive [Leon] Alberti’s statement seems when one thinks of that great bundle of fears and memories that every individual carries around with him, to say nothing of the external forces which are totally beyond his control. Kenneth Clark, Civilisation 4/13: Man the Measure of All Things, BBC 1969
cf.
To you is given a body more graceful than other animals, to you power of apt and various movements, to you most sharp and delicate senses, to you wit, reason, memory like an immortal god. Leon Battista Alberti