Men know that women are an over-match for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Few women care what a man looks like, and a good thing too.
—Mignon McLaughlin (1913–83) American Journalist, Author
Man dreams of fame while woman wakes to love.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92) British Poet
The female of the genus homo is economically dependent on the male. He is her food supply.
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) American Feminist, Writer
The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Men are beasts and even beasts don’t behave as they do.
—Brigitte Bardot (b.1934) French Film Star
There are certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are of pretty woman to deserve them.
—Jane Austen (1775–1817) English Novelist
What a strange thing man is; and what a stranger thing woman.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Men are not to be told anything they might find too painful; the secret depths of human nature, the sordid physicalities, might overwhelm or damage them. For instance, men often faint at the sight of their own blood, to which they are not accustomed. For this reason you should never stand behind one in the line at the Red Cross donor clinic.
—Margaret Atwood (b.1939) Canadian Writer, Poet, Critic
I wonder why men get serious at all. They have this delicate, long thing hanging outside their bodies which goes up and down by its own will. If I were a man I would always be laughing at myself.
—Yoko Ono (b.1933) Japanese Artist, Musician, Campaigner
When a man is wrong and won’t admit it, he always gets angry.
—Thomas Chandler Haliburton (1796–1865) Canadian Author, Humorist, Businessperson, Judge
A man can’t make a place for himself in the sun if he keeps taking refuge under the family tree.
—Helen Keller (1880–1968) American Author
The real difference between men is energy. A strong will, a settled purpose, an invincible determination, can accomplish almost anything; and in this lies the distinction between great men and little men.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
Man made one grave mistake: in answer to vaguely reformist and humanitarian agitation he admitted women to politics and the professions. The conservatives who saw this as the undermining of our civilization and the end of the state and marriage were right after all; it is time for the demolition to begin.
—Germaine Greer (b.1939) Australia Academic, Journalist, Scholar, Writer
Before they’re plumbers or writers or taxi drivers or unemployed or journalists, before everything else, men are men. Whether heterosexual or homosexual. The only difference is that some of them remind you of it as soon as you meet them, and others wait for a little while.
—Marguerite Duras (1914–96) French Novelist, Playwright
Marrying a man is like buying something you’ve been admiring for a long time in a shop window. You may love it when you get it home, but it doesn’t always go with everything else in the house.
—Jean Kerr (1922–2003) Irish-American Author, Playwright
By persistently remaining single, a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation. Men should be more careful.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
It is difficulties that show what men are.
—Epictetus (55–135) Ancient Greek Philosopher
A man’s idea in a game of cards is war, cruel, devastating, and pitiless. A lady’s idea of it is a combination of larceny, embezzlement and burglary.
—Finley Peter Dunne (1867–1936) American Author, Writer, Humorist
Considering the absence of legal coercion, the surprising thing is that men have for so long, and, on the whole, so reliably, adhered to what we might call the “breadwinner ethic.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b.1941) American Social Critic, Essayist
Either sex alone is half itself.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92) British Poet
Prudent men woo thrifty women.
—German Proverb
Alas! it is not the child but the boy that generally survives in the man.
—Arthur Helps (1813–75) English Dramatist, Essayist
It is impossible to believe that the same God who permitted His own son to die a bachelor regards celibacy as an actual sin.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
A lady is smarter than a gentleman, maybe, she can sew a fine seam, she can have a baby, she can use her intuition instead of her brain, but she can’t fold a paper in a crowded train.
—Phyllis McGinley (1905–78) American Children’s Books Writer, Poet, Writer of Children’s Books
Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later, for another thing, they die earlier.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
A women knows how to keep quiet when she is in the right, whereas a man, when he is in the right, will keep on talking.
—Malcolm de Chazal (1902–81) Mauritian Writer, Painter, Visionary
The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
Did you hear about the baby born with organs of both sexes? It had a penis and a brain.
—Unknown
A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.
—Buddhist Teaching
A man who marries his mistress leaves a vacancy in that position.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
There is hardly an American male of my generation who has not at one time or another tried to master the victory cry of the great ape as it issued from the androgynous chest of Johnny Weissmuller, to the accompaniment of thousands of arms and legs snapping during attempts to swing from tree to tree in the backyards of the Republic.
—Gore Vidal (1925–48) American Novelist, Essayist, Journalist, Playwright
Men, by associating in large masses, as in camps and cities, improve their talents but impair their virtues; and strengthen their minds, but weaken their morals; thus a retrocession in the one, is too often the price they pay for a refinement of the other.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
Every woman is like a time-zone. She is a nocturnal fragment of your journey. She brings you unflaggingly closer to the next night.
—Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French Sociologist, Philosopher
A man’s home may be his castle on the outside; inside, it is more often his nursery.
—Clare Boothe Luce (1903–87) American Playwright, Diplomat, Journalist, Diplomat, Elected Rep
Girls we love for what they are; men for what they promise to be.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Men are but children, too, though they have gray hairs; they are only of a larger size.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
There are three classes of men; the retrograde, the stationary and the progressive.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) Swiss Theologian, Poet
Some men are like nails, very easily drawn; others however are more like rivets never drawn at all.
—John Burroughs (1837–1921) American Naturalist, Writer
Men feel that women somehow drag them down, and women feel that way about men. It’s possible that both are right.
—Mignon McLaughlin (1913–83) American Journalist, Author
Nature has not placed us in an inferior rank to men, no more than the females of other animals, where we see no distinction of capacity, though I am persuaded if there was a commonwealth of rational horses… it would be an established maxim amongst them that a mare could not be taught to pace.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) English Aristocrat, Poet, Novelist, Writer
Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
There is something to me very softening in the presence of a woman, some strange influence, even if one is not in love with them, which I cannot at all account for, having no very high opinion of the sex. But yet, I always feel in better humor with myself and every thing else, if there is a woman within ken.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
There is always a period when a man with a beard shaves it off. This period does not last. He returns headlong to his beard.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
We do not commonly find men of superior sense amongst those of the highest fortune.
—Juvenal (c.60–c.136 CE) Roman Poet
She even had a kind of special position among men: she was an exception, she fitted none of the categories they commonly used when talking about girls; she wasn’t a cock-teaser, a cold fish, an easy lay or a sneaky bitch; she was an honorary person. She had grown to share their contempt for most women.
—Margaret Atwood (b.1939) Canadian Writer, Poet, Critic
Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Men are only as loyal as their options.
—Bill Maher (b.1956) American Comedian, TV Personality, Social Critic, Author, Actor