Quotes
Quotes about Men
Man shapes himself through decision that shape his environment.
No letters after your name are ever going to be a total guarantee of competence any more than they are a guarantee against fraud. Improving competence involves continuing professional development ... That is the really crucial thing, not just passing an examination.
When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music.
If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.
Wagner has lovely moments but awful quarters of an hour.
The art of drawing conclusions from experiments and observations consists in evaluating probabilities and in estimating whether they are sufficiently great or numerous enough to constitute proofs. This kind of calculation is more complicated and more dif.
Since you go where all have gone before, why do you torment your your disgraceful life with such mean ambitions, O miser? [Lat., Abiturus illuc priores abierunt, Quid mente caeca torques spiritum? Tibi dico, avare.]
That to live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery.
Fire tries gold, misery tries brave men. [Lat., Ignis aurum probat, misera fortes viros.]
Maybe men are separated from each other only by the degree of their misery.
People talk about the courage of condemned men walking to the place of execution: sometimes it needs as much courage to walk with any kind of bearing towards another person's habitual misery.
Most of our misfortune are more supportable than the comments of our friends upon them.
Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wreck'd.
There is nothing so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness it is in your expecting evil before it arrives! [Lat., Nil est nec miserius nec stultius quam praetimere. Quae ista dementia est, malum suum antecedere!]
All men's misfortunes spring from their hatred of being alone.
Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.
Get together a hundred or two men, however sensible they may be, and you are very likely to have a mob.
He takes the greatest ornament from friendship, who takes modesty from it. [Lat., Maximum ornamentum amicitiae tollit, qui ex ea tollit verecudiam.]
Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue.
In its famous paradox, the equation of money and excrement, psychoanalysis becomes the first science to state what common sense and the poets have long known--that the essence of money is in its absolute worthlessness.
Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers your scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?
Money does not change men, it only unmasks them.
Money can't buy real friendshipâfriendship must be earned. Money can't buy a clear conscienceâsquare dealing is the price tag. Money can't buy the glow of good healthâright living is the secret. Money can't buy happinessâhappiness is a mental condition and one may be as happy in a cottage as in a mansion. Money can't buy sunsets, songs of wild birds and the music of the wind in the treesâthese are as free as the air we breath. Money can't buy inward peaceâpeace is the result of a constructive philosophy in life. Money can't buy a good characterâgood character is achieved through decent habits of private living and wholesome dealings in our open contacts with our fellow men.
A person's treatment of money is the most decisive test of his character, how they make it and how they spend it.
