Men Quotes

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

Albert Camus

Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Cherish all your happy moments they make a fine cushion for old age.

Christopher Morley

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; thus unlamented let me die; steal from the world, and not a stone tell where I lie.

Alexander Pope, "Ode to Solitude".

The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.

Henry David Thoreau

History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.

Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation, Jan 16, 1984

Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure men love in haste but they detest at leisure.

George Gordon Byron

We think very little of time present; we anticipate the future, as being too slow, and with a view to hasten it onward, we recall the past to stay it as too swiftly gone. We are so thoughtless, that we thus wander through the hours which are not here, regardless only of the moment that is actually our own.

Blaise Pascal

There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.

James Russell Lowell

Speech was given to the ordinary sort of men, whereby to communicate their mind but to wise men, whereby to conceal it.

Robert South

Happiness is the only sanction of life where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.

George Santayana

Always aim for achievement, and forget about success.

Helen Hayes

Men of ill judgment oft ignore the good That lies within their hands, till they have lost it.

Sophocles

In rivers and bad governments, the lightest things swim at the top.

Benjamin Franklin

Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.

Thomas Jefferson

No nice men are good at getting taxis.

Katharine Whitehorn

A fondness for satire indicates a mind pleased with irritating others for myself, I never could find amusement in killing flies.

Jeanne - Marie Roland

Great men are not always idiots.

Karen Elizabeth Gordon

As men, we are all equal in the presence of death.

Publilius Syrus

Every scientific fulfillment raises new questions; it asks to be surpassed and outdated.

Max Webe

Punishment is not for revenge, but to lessen crime and reform the criminal.

Elizabeth Fry, Journal entry

Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.

Tom Robbins

I think there is a choice possible to us at any moment, as long as we live. But there is no sacrifice. There is a choice, and the rest falls away. Second choice does not exist. Beware of those who talk about sacrifice.

Muriel Rukeyse

My dear boy, no woman is a genius. They are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

This world is given as the prize for the men in earnest and that which is true of this world, is truer still of the world to come.

Frederick William Robertson

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.

Herman Melville

A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men.

Roald Dahl, (Willy Wonka) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

The pursuit of perfection often impedes improvement.

George Will

So long as faith with freedom reigns And loyal hope survives, And gracious charity remains To leaven lowly lives; While there is one untrodden tract For intellect or will, And men are free to think and act, Life is worth living still.

Alfred Austin

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesa

Any business arrangement that is not profitable to the other person will in the end prove unprofitable for you. The bargain that yields mutual satisfaction is the only one that is apt to be repeated.

B. C. Forbes

Let me tell you I am better acquainted with you for a long absence, as men are with themselves for a long affliction absence does but hold off a friend, to make one see him the truer.

Alexander Pope

All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent by the government in less than a second.

Jim Fiebig

Nothing is quite so wretchedly corrupt as an aristocracy which has lost its power but kept its wealth and which still has endless leisure to devote to nothing but banal enjoyments. All its great thoughts and passionate energy are things of the past, and nothing but a host of petty, gnawing vices now cling to it like worms to a corpse.

Alexis Charles Henri Clrel de Tocqueville

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.

Goethe

Abundance of knowledge does not teach men to be wise.

Heraclitus

To be intelligent is to be open - Minded, active, memoried, and persistently experimental.

Leopold Stein