The world will only, in the end, follow those who have despised as well as served it.
—Samuel Butler
Let a man avoid evil as does a merchant, having (only) few companions (but) possessing great wealth, avoid a dangerous road, or as does a person, still clinging to life, avoid a poison.
—Buddhist Teaching
To study mankind, is not learning to hate them; so far from such a malevolent end, it is learning to bear and live easily with them.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
I mean, after all; you have to consider we’re only made out of dust. That’s admittedly not much to go on and we shouldn’t forget that. But even considering, I mean it’s a sort of bad beginning, we’re not doing too bad. So I personally have faith that even in this lousy situation we’re faced with we can make it. You get me?
—Philip K. Dick (1928–82) American Novelist, Essayist, Short Story Writer
A Bhikkhu must not shrink because of blame nor swell because of praise. He must try to get rid of his covetousness, miserliness, anger and slander.
—Buddhist Teaching
Man has become a superman … because he not only disposes of innate, physical forces, but because he is in command … of latent forces in nature and because he can put them to his service…. But the essential fact we must surely all feel in our hearts … is that we are becoming inhuman in proportion as we become supermen.
—Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French Theologian, Musician, Philosopher, Physician
What all men are really after is some form, or perhaps only some formula, of peace.
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-born British Novelist
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
Never does a wise man commit a sin for the sake of his happiness. Never will he discard Morality because of his personal love or hatred, even though he may suffer and meet with a failure.
—Buddhist Teaching
A gentleman is one who is too brave to lie, too generous to cheat, and who takes his share of the world and lets other people have theirs.
—Paul G. Hoffman (1891–1974) American Businessperson, Government Official
Endowed with morality, wisdom and learning, a man usually behaves for others’ welfare as well as for himself.
—Buddhist Teaching
As an awaken man does not see what he saw in who his dream, so a living man cannot see the deceased who were his beloved ones.
—Buddhist Teaching
For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.
—Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English Novelist, Scriptwriter
Why do we spend years using up our bodies to nurture our minds with experience and find our minds turning then to our exhausted bodies for solace?
—Unknown
The way of every man is declarative of the end of every man.
—Richard Cecil
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 living-place of an Arahat (“Worthy One”), be it a village or a forest, in the low land or on the plateau, is always delightful.
—Buddhist Teaching
He who is wise in the ancient law of Righteousness and is well-behaved will never go to the lower state of existence.
—Buddhist Teaching
He has abandoned the five mental hindrances and has destroyed his mental impurities. Having done away with his love and hatred, he is not possessed by thirst and wrong views. Such a person generally wanders alone like the rhinoceros’s horn.
—Buddhist Teaching
A rational nature admits of nothing which is not serviceable to the rest of mankind.
—Marcus Aurelius (121–180) Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher
Not only can a man be called “wise,” but also can a woman who is endowed with wisdom be so called.
—Buddhist Teaching
Contemporaries appreciate the man rather than his merit; posterity will regard the merit rather than the man.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
Your body is the church where Nature asks to be reverenced.
—Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) French Political leader, Revolutionary, Novelist, Poet, Critic
Speaking generally, men are ungrateful, fickle, hypocritical, fearful of danger and covetous of gain.
—Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Florentine Political Philosopher
A wise man, having obtained wealth, usually helps his relatives. He is accordingly beloved here and will also rejoice in the hereafter.
—Buddhist Teaching
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
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
When faith is lost, when honor dies, the man is dead.
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–92) American Quaker Poet, Abolitionist
Sweating, slums, the sense of semi-slavery in labor, must go. We must cultivate a sense of manhood by treating men as men.
—David Lloyd George (1863–1945) British Liberal Statesman
Wondrous hole! Magical hole! Dazzlingly influential hole! Noble and effulgent hole! From this hole everything follows logically: first the baby, then the placenta, then, for years and years and years until death, a way of life. It is all logic, and she who lives by the hole will live also by its logic. It is, appropriately, logic with a hole in it.
—Cynthia Ozick (b.1928) American Novelist, Short-story Writer, Essayist