An impersonal and scientific knowledge of the structure of our bodies is the surest safeguard against prurient curiosity and lascivious gloating.
—Marie Stopes (1880–1958) British Author, Social Activist
He is the wisest and happiest man, who, by constant attention of thought discovers the greatest opportunity of doing good, and breaks through every opposition that he may improve these opportunities.
—Philip Doddridge (1702–51) English Nonconformist Religious Leader, Educator, Hymn writer
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
I am an acme of things accomplished, and I am encloser of things to be.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
The virtuous, like the Himalayas, appear from far away, while the vicious, like an arrow shot into the dark of the night, always disappears.
—Buddhist Teaching
How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, how complicate, how wonderful is man! distinguished link in being’s endless chain! midway from nothing to the Deity! dim miniature of greatness absolute! an heir of glory! a frail child of dust! helpless immortal! insect infinite! a worm! a God!
—Edward Young (1683–1765) English Poet
O Bhikkhus, while you are thus recollecting the Buddha (the Enlightened One), the Dhamma (the Law) and the Sangha (the Order), you will be free from fear, fright, and also from being startled.
—Buddhist Teaching
Your body is the church where Nature asks to be reverenced.
—Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) French Political leader, Revolutionary, Novelist, Poet, Critic
He should be known as a wretch who, after borrowing and spending other’s money, runs away or refuses the debt.
—Buddhist Teaching
To have known one good old man—one man who, through the chances and mischances of a long life, has carried his heart in his hand, like a palm branch, waving all discords into peace—helps our faith in God, in ourselves, and in each other, more than many sermons.
—George William Curtis (1824–92) American Essayist, Public Speaker, Editor, Author
Nobody can make anybody be someone he or she doesn’t want to be.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
Anyone who considers himself in this way will be seized with terror and, discovering that the mass nature has given him supports itself between two abysses of infinity and nothingness, he will tremble in the face of these marvels; and I believe that as his curiosity changes to admiration, he will be more disposed to contemplate them in silence then search them out with presumption.
For, finally, what is man in nature? He is nothing in comparison with the infinite, and everything in comparison with nothingness, a middle term between all and nothing. He is infinitely severed from comprehending the extremes; the end of things and their principle are for him invincibly hidden in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he arises and the infinity into which he is engulfed.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
Three things too much, and three too little are pernicious to man; to speak much, and know little; to spend much, and have little; to presume much, and be worth little.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
He is wise who purposely remains single, whereas he stains himself who is addicted to sexual intercourse.
—Buddhist Teaching
He is doomed to enter the Realm of Misery who, being absorbed in and delighted with sensual pleasure, is deeply merged in it and commits a sin (for its sake).
—Buddhist Teaching
The highest manhood resides in disposition, not in mere intellect.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
Man is the creature of circumstances.
—Robert Owen (1771–1858) British Social Reformer, Philosopher
There is a cropping-time in the races of men, as in the fruits of the field; and sometimes, if the shock be good, there springs up for a time a succession of splendid men; and then comes a period of barrenness.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
Parents are the supreme gods to their children. They are also called the children’s first teachers. They are their greatest objects of worship and the patrons of beings.
—Buddhist Teaching
He who duly supports his parents is always praised in this very life. He will also rejoice in the hereafter.
—Buddhist Teaching
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face,
tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Children’s Books Writer, Short story, Novelist, Poet, Journalist
Many men build as cathedrals are built-the part nearest the ground finished, but that part which soars toward heaven, the turrets and the spires, forever incomplete.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
Being afraid of suffering and loathing it, you should do no evil, both in the open and in the secret place.
—Buddhist Teaching
Men are the Universe become conscious: the simplest man should consider himself too great to be called after any name.
—John Thain Davidson (1833–1904) British Presbyterian Preacher
The body is a community made up of its innumerable cells or inhabitants.
—Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American Inventor, Scientist, Entrepreneur
Just as the Brahmins worship the fire, so should you worship him by whom the doctrine, well-preached by the All-Enlightened one, is made known to you.
—Buddhist Teaching
The superior man will watch over himself when he is alone. He examines his heart that there may be nothing wrong there, and that he may have no cause of dissatisfaction with himself.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
The human body is a peculiar device, pat it on the back and the head swells.
—Unknown
He is of the earth, but his thoughts are with the stars. Mean and petty his wants and desires; yet they serve a soul exalted with grand, glorious aims,—with immortal longings,—with thoughts which sweep the heavens, and wander through eternity. A pigmy standing on the outward crest of this small planet, his far reaching spirit stretches outward to the infinite, and there alone finds rest.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man which it forms.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
Do you know what a man is? Are not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a man?
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
An eclipsed moon enjoys no brightness or splendour, nor does a man who is under a woman’s influence, even though he may be influential, wise, respected and worshipped by the public.
—Buddhist Teaching
The world will only, in the end, follow those who have despised as well as served it.
—Samuel Butler
Half dust, half deity, alike unfit to sink or soar.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
One who is given to anger and ill-will thereby refusing to forgive others’ faults which have been confessed, heaps hatred upon himself.
—Buddhist Teaching
Man is a being in search of meaning.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
An honest man is the noblest work of God.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.
—Aeschylus (525–456 BCE) Greek Poet
Man is never honestly the fatalist, nor even the stoic. He fights his fate, often desperately. He is forever entering bold exceptions to the rulings of the bench of gods. This fighting, no doubt, makes for human progress, for it favors the strong and the brave. It also makes for beauty, for lesser men try to escape from a hopeless and intolerable world by creating a more lovely one of their own.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
Thoughtfulness for others, generosity, modesty, and self-respect are the qualities which make a real gentleman or lady, as distinguished from the veneered article which commonly goes by that name.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) English Biologist
He who was brought up with difficulty by his parents but does not minister to their wants and behave wrongly towards them, is doomed to enter the realm of misery.
—Buddhist Teaching
He who is equipped with mindfulness and who extends unlimited loving-kindness to all beings has destroyed hit passions. His fetters are loosened.
—Buddhist Teaching
In men whom men pronounce as ill I find so much of goodness still. In men whom men pronounce divine, I find so much of sin and blot; I hesitate to draw the line between the two, when God has not.
—Joaquin Miller (1837–1913) American Poet, Journalist
Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause; he noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws. All other Life is living Death, a world where none but Phantoms dwell, a breath, a wind, a sound, a voice, a tinkling of the camel-bell.
—Richard Burton (1925–84) Welsh Actor
Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is the most terrible of all when he lives without law, and without justice.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
What was my body to me? A kind of flunkey in my service. Let but my anger wax hot, my love grow exalted, my hatred collect in me, and that boasted solidarity between me and my body was gone.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–44) French Novelist, Aviator
We must love men ere they will seem to us worthy of our love.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
The history of the human race, viewed as a whole, may be regarded as the realization of a hidden plan of nature to bring about a political constitution, internally, and for this purpose, also externally perfect, as the only state in which all the capacities implanted by her in mankind can be fully developed.
—Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) Prussian German Philosopher, Logician
But the lightning which explodes and fashions planets, maker of planets and suns, is in him. On one side, elemental order, sandstone and granite, rock-ledges, peat-bog, forest, sea and shore; and, on the other part, thought, the spirit which composes and decomposes nature,—here they are, side by side, god and devil, mind and matter, king and conspirator, belt and spasm, riding peacefully together in the eye and brain of every man.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
We must be united, we must be undaunted, we must be inflexible. Our qualities and deeds must burn and glow through the gloom of Europe until they become the veritable beacon of its salvation.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author