Quotes
Quotes about Man
Now, blessings light on him that first invented this same sleep! It covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; it is meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot. It is the current coin that purchases all the pleasures of the world cheap, and the balance that sets the king and the shepherd, the fool and the wise man, even.
Man-like is it to fall into sin,
Fiend-like is it to dwell therein;
Christ-like is it for sin to grieve,
God-like is it all sin to leave.
In bed we laugh, in bed we cry;
And, born in bed, in bed we die.
The near approach a bed may show
Of human bliss to human woe.
A man who is ungrateful is often less to blame than his benefactor.
By the work one knows the workman.
Although I am a pious man, I am not the less a man.
You are speaking before a man to whom all Naples is known.
Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.
What a chimera, then, is man! what a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! A judge of all things, feeble worm of the earth, depositary of the truth, cloaca of uncertainty and error, the glory and the shame of the universe!
For as old age is that period of life most remote from infancy, who does not see that old age in this universal man ought not to be sought in the times nearest his birth, but in those most remote from it?
History is little else than a picture of human crimes and misfortunes.
We read of a certain Roman emperor who built a magnificent palace. In digging the foundation, the workmen discovered a golden sarcophagus ornamented with three circlets, on which were inscribed, "I have expended; I have given; I have kept; I have possessed; I do possess; I have lost; I am punished. What I formerly expended, I have; what I gave away, I have."
O Liberty! Liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name!
Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee,--
Take, I give it willingly;
For, invisible to thee,
Spirits twain have crossed with me.
The vicar's right; he says that we
Are ever wayward, weak and blind;
He tells us in his homily
Ambition ruins all mankind;
Only one thing is necessary: to possess God--All the senses, all the forces of the soul and of the spirit, all the exterior resources are so many open outlets to the Divinity; so many ways of tasting and of adoring God. We should be able to detach ourselves from all that is perishable and cling absolutely to the eternal and the absolute and enjoy the all else as a loan, as a usufruct.... To worship, to comprehend, to receive, to feel, to give, to act: this our law, our duty, our happiness, our heaven.
A man without passion is only a latent force, only a possibility, like a stone waiting for the blow from the iron to give forth sparks.
The efficacy of religion lies precisely in what is not rational, philosophic or eternal; its efficacy lies in the unforeseen, the miraculous, the extraordinary. Thus religion attracts more devotion according as it demands more faith,--that is to say, as it becomes more incredible to the profane mind. The philosopher aspires to explain away all mysteries, to dissolve them into light. Mystery on the other hand is demanded and pursued by the religious instinct; mystery constitutes the essence of worship, the power of proselytism. When the "cross" became the "foolishness" of the cross, it took possession of the masses.
Only the spirit of rebellion craves for happiness in this life. What right have we human beings to happiness?
There is one evident, indubitable manifestation of the Divinity, and that is the laws of right which are made known to the world through Revelation.
The vocation of every man and woman is to serve other people.
Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen.
I teach you the Overman. Man is something which shall be surpassed.
The value of many men and books rests solely on their faculty for compelling all to speak out the most hidden and intimate things.
Many a man fails to become a thinker for the sole reason that his memory is too good.
