Be neither saint nor sophist-led but be a man. Matthew Arnold, 1822-1888, Impedocles on Etna
At some point you have to be a man. Teddy Atlas, Tyson’s Trainer 1980-1982, cited Ringside: Mike Tyson part 2
Lord, what is man? Why should he cost thee
So dear? What had his ruin lost thee?
Lord, what is man, that thou hast overbought
So much a thing of naught? Richard Crashaw, c.1612-49, Caritas Nimia or The Dear Bargain, 1648
No man is an Island, entire of it self; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. John Donne, 1572-1631, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions: Meditation XVII
At this place, at this moment in time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Samuel Beckett, Waiting For Godot
There’s man all over for you – blaming on his boots for the faults of his feet. ibid.
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it. H L Mencken, US editor, 1880-1956
Mankind have been created for the sake of one another. Either instruct them, therefore, or endure them. Marcus Aurelius
In the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could. Abigail Adams, 1744-1818, wife of John Adams & mother of John Quincy Adams
The truth is that the propensity of man to imitate what is before him is one of the strongest parts of his nature. Walter Bagehot, Physics and Politics, 1872
May I speak plainly? ... If you'll forgive me, he’s common ... He’s like an animal. He has an animal’s habits. There’s even something subhuman about him. Thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is. Stanley Kowalski, survivor of the Stone Age, bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle. And you – you here waiting for him. Maybe he’ll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you, that’s if kisses have been discovered yet. Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche Dubois
The best of men cannot suspend their fate:
The good die early, and the bad die late. Daniel Defoe, 1660-1731
My man don’t love me
He treats me oh so mean
My man he don’t love me
He treat me awful mean
He’s the lowest man
That I’ve ever seen. Billie Holiday, My Man
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you …
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son! Rudyard Kipling, If
Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise. Francis Bacon
I know my life’s a pain and but a span,
I know my sense is mocked in every thing;
And to conclude, I know myself a man,
Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing. John Davies, 1569-1626, Nosce Teipsum, 1599
Why can’t a woman be more like a man?
Men are so honest, so thoroughly square;
Eternally noble, historically fair;
Who, when you win, will always give your back a pat.
Why can’t a woman be like that? Alan Jay Lerner, song 1956
Man was by Nature Women’s cully made:
We never are, but by ourselves, betrayed. William Congreve, 1670-1729, The Old Bachelor, 1693
Here’s all you have to know about men and women: women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid. George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?
I require three things in a man: he must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid. Dorothy Parker
I never hated a man enough to give him his diamonds back. Zsa Zsa Gabor
I assure you. I have no notion of treating men with such respect. That is the way to spoil them. Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man. Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman
Society is inside of man and man is inside society, and you cannot even create a truthfully drawn psychological entity on the stage until you understand his social relations and their power to make him what he is and to prevent him from being what he is not. The fish is in the water and the water is in the fish. Arthur Miller, The Shadows of the Gods
Men don’t often know those times when a girl could be had for nothing. F Scott Fitzgerald, The Last Tycoon
Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size. Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, 1929
Why are women... so much more interesting to men than men are to women? Virginia Woolf
The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments, Seneca Falls Convention July 1848
It was the promise of men, that around each corner there was yet another man, more wonderful than the last, that sustained me. You see, I had men confused with life … You can’t get what I wanted from a man, not in this life. Nancy Friday, ‘My Mother, My Self’, 1977
Women do not find it difficult nowadays to behave like men, but they often find it extremely difficult to behave like gentlemen. Compton Mackenzie, Literature In My Time 1933
Being a woman is a terribly difficult task since it consists principally in dealing with men. Joseph Conrad
Women deprived of the company of men pine, men deprived of the company of women become stupid. Anton Chekhov, notebooks
In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth, women are not merely tolerated but valued. Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese political leader
Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea. Robert Heinlein
Women have very little idea of how much men hate them. Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch, 1970
Whatever they may be in public life, whatever their relations with men, in their relations with women, all men are rapists, and that’s all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, and their codes. Marilyn French, The Women’s Room, 1977
We declare our right on this Earth to be a man. To be a human being. To be respected as a human being. To be given the rights of a human being. In this society, on this Earth this day which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary. Malcolm X
And this hurts men. It hurts them by making them unconsciously perpetrate biases they’ve been actively taught to despise. It hurts them by making them complicit in the distress of others. It hurts them by shoehorning them into a restrictive definition masculinity from which any and all deviation is harshly punished. It hurts them by saying they will always be inferior parents and caregivers, that they must always be active and aggressive even when they long for passivity and quietude, that they must enjoy certain things like sports and beer and cars or else be deemed morally suspect. It hurts them through a process of indoctrination so subtle and pervasive that they never even knew it was happening, and when you’ve been raised to hate inequality, discovering that you’ve actually been its primary beneficiary is horrifying – like learning that the family fortune comes from blood money. Foz Meadows, blog 2012
I have resigned. I will not be pushed. Filed. Stamped. Indexed. Briefed. Debriefed. Or numbered. My life is my own. My life is my own. I am not a number. I am a free man. The Prisoner, TV series 1967-68
Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no-one idolized. Albert Einstein