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
Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man—yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.
—Marcus Aurelius (121–180) Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher
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 Hymn Writer, Educator, Religious Leader
One who has calmed down all kinds of evil, small and great, is called a “Samana”—one who calms down evils.
—Buddhist Teaching
Government, religion, property, books, are nothing but the scaffolding to build men. Earth holds up to her master no fruit like the finished man.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) German Philosopher, Linguist, Statesman
There are three marks of a superior man; being virtuous, he is free from anxiety; being wise, he is free from perplexity; being brave, he is free from fear.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
The authority of any governing institution must stop at its citizen’s skin.
—Gloria Steinem (b.1934) American Feminist, Journalist, Activist, Political Advocate
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
Man, biologically considered, and whatever else he may be into the bargain, is the most formidable of all beasts of prey, and indeed, the only one who preys systematically on his own species.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher.
—Henry van Dyke Jr. (1852–1933) American Author, Educator, Clergyman
No man is so great as mankind.
—Theodore Parker (1810–60) American Unitarian Minister, Abolitionist
Man can climb to the highest summits but he cannot dwell there long.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Man is an animal that makes bargains; no other animal does this—one dog does not change a bone with another.
—George Goodman (b.1930) American Economist, Author
A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority; what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
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 Writer, Science Fiction Author
Man consists of two parts, his mind and his body, only the body has more fun.
—Woody Allen (b.1935) American Film Actor, Director
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 Leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
He who neither kills nor gives the order to kill and neither conquers nor gives the order to conquer cultivates his loving-kindness to all beings, thereby being at enmity with nobody.
—Buddhist Teaching
Our generation is realistic for we have come to know man as he really is.
After all, man is that being who has invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who has entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or Shema Yisrael on his lips.
—Viktor Frankl (1905–97) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist
There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.
—Willa Cather (1873–1947) American Novelist, Writer
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, Philosopher, Musician, Physician
We tolerate shapes in human beings that would horrify us if we saw them in a horse.
—William Ralph Inge (1860–1954) English Anglican Clergyman, Priest, Mystic
He who has conquered Mara (the Evil One) together with his army has the last birth because he has perfected his mental forces, calmed down his mind and put it to rest.
—Buddhist Teaching
Every man is a volume, if you know how to read him.
—William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) American Unitarian Theologian, 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
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
Nobody can make anybody be someone he or she doesn’t want to be.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
‘Know thyself’ was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, ‘Be thyself’ shall be written.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delighteth not me…
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
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