Guys are like roses. You’ve got to watch out for the pricks.
—Unknown
A hairy body, and arms stiff with bristles, give promise of a manly soul.
—Juvenal (c.60–c.136 CE) Roman Poet
That man is idle who can do something better.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
I tell you there isn’t a thing under the sun that needs to be done at all, but what a man can do better than a woman, unless it’s bearing children, and they do that in a poor make-shift way; it had better ha been left to the men.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
God gave us all a penis and a brain, but only enough blood to run one at a time.
—Robin Williams (b.1951) American Actor, Comedian
The analysis of man discloses three chemical elements – a job, a meal and a woman.
—Martin H. Fischer
Someone has to stand up for wimps.
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b.1941) American Social Critic, Essayist
The cruelest thing a man can do to a woman is to portray her as perfection.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn’t need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder—in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever.
—Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American 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
It is far easier to know men than to know man.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80) French Philosopher, Playwright, Novelist, Screenwriter, Political Activist
Men and women, women and men; it will never work.
—Erica Jong (b.1942) American Novelist, Feminist
Left to itself the masculine imagination has very little appreciation for the here and now; it prefers to dwell on what is absent, on what has been or may be. If men are more punctual than women, it is because they know that, without the external discipline of clock time, they would never get anything done.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
There’s nothing wrong with most men’s egos that the kowtowing of a headwaiter can’t cure.
—Mignon McLaughlin (1913–83) American Journalist, Author
A man’s women folk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with something akin to pity. His most gaudy sayings and doings seldom deceive them; they see the actual man within, and know him for a shallow and pathetic fellow. In this fact, perhaps, lies one of the best proofs of feminine intelligence, or, as the common phrase makes it, feminine intuition.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her head on.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
The fact is, you have fallen lately, Cecily, into a bad habit of thinking for yourself. You should give it up. It is not quite womanly… men don’t like it.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
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’m a babe magnet… just the wrong end.
—Unknown
Most men experience getting older with regret, apprehension. But most women experience it even more painfully: with shame. Aging is a man’s destiny, something that must happen because he is a human being.
—Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American Writer, Philosopher
For the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
The woman who is known only through a man is known wrong.
—Henry Adams (1838–1918) American Historian, Man of Letters
It is much more easy to accuse the one sex than to excuse the other.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
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
There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
If the world were a logical place, men would ride side saddle.
—Rita Mae Brown (b.1944) American Writer, Feminist
When you meet a man, you judge him by his clothes; when you leave, you judge him by his heart.
—Russian Proverb
Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
I really think that American gentlemen are the best after all, because kissing your hand may make you feel very good but a diamond and a sapphire bracelet lasts forever.
—Anita Loos (1888–1981) American Actor, Novelist, Screenwriter
Men mourn for what they have lost; women for what they ain’t got.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (1818–85) American Humorist, Author, Lecturer
Men and statues that are admired in an elevated situation, have a very different effect on us when we approach them; the first appear less than we imagined them, the last bigger.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick (1746–1816) British Nobleman, Politician
Men naturally resent it when women take greater liberties in dress than men are allowed.
—Michael Korda (b.1933) English-born Writer, Novelist
A man always blames the woman who fools him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in the dark.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
There are always women who will take men on their own terms. If I were a man I wouldn’t bother to change while there are women like that around.
—Ann Oakley (b.1944) English Sociologist, Writer, Feminist
If you teach a poor young man to shave himself, and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas. This sum may be soon spent, the regret only remaining of having foolishly consumed it; but in the other case, he escapes the frequent vexation of waiting for barbers, and of their sometimes dirty fingers, offensive breaths, and dull razors.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
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 source of all life and knowledge is in man and woman, and the source of all living is in the interchange and the meeting and mingling of these two: man-life and woman-life, man-knowledge and woman-knowledge, man-being and woman-being.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them.
—Walter Bagehot (1826–77) English Economist, Journalist
Either sex alone is half itself.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92) British Poet
When a woman is very, very bad, she is awful, but when a man is correspondingly good, he is weird.
—Minna Antrim (1861–1950) American Writer, Epigrammist
The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
What is the difference between men and women? A woman wants one man to satisfy her every need, and a man wants every woman to satisfy his one need.
—Unknown
A pretty little collection of weaknesses and a terror of spiders are our indispensable stock-in-trade with the men.
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
Macho doesn’t prove mucho.
—Zsa Zsa Gabor (1919–2016) Hungarian-born Film Actress
What a fuss people make about fidelity! Why, even in love it is purely a question for physiology. It has nothing to do with our own will. Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can say.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Men are the dreams of a shadow.
—Pindar (c.518–c.438 BCE) Greek Lyric Poet
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
I don’t know why women want any of the things men have when one the things that women have is men.
—Coco Chanel (1883–1971) French Fashion Designer