Protagoras 490-421 BC
[That] man is the measure of all things.
Quarles Francis 1592-1644
Emblems
Man is Heaven's masterpiece.
Saint-Exupéry Antoine de 1900-1944
To be a man is to feel that one's own stone contributes to building the edifice of the world.
Saroyan William 1908-1981
Every man in the world is better than someone else. And not as good as some one else.
Sartre Jean-Paul 1905-1980
Being and Nothingness
Man is a useless passion.
Scott Sir Walter 1771-1832
The Heart of Midlothian
The hour is come, but not the man.
Scott Sir Walter 1771-1832
The Lay of the Last Minstrel
True love's the gift which God has given
To man alone beneath the heaven.
Shadwell Thomas 1642-1692
A True Widow
Every man loves what he is good at.
Shaffer Ivan
A man isn't a man until he has to meet a payroll.
Shakespeare William 1564-1616
Much Ado About Nothing
I thank God, I am as honest as any man living, that is an old man and no honester than I.
Shakespeare William 1564-1616
Hamlet
He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
Shakespeare William 1564-1616
Measure for Measure
Man, proud man,
Drest in a little authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
His glassy essence, like angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep.
Shakespeare William 1564-1616
The Merchant of Venice
God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man.
Shakespeare William 1564-1616
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
O heaven! were man
But constant, he were perfect.
Shaw George Bernard 1856-1950
Arms and the Man
You're not a man, you're a machine.
Smith Adam 1723-1790
Man, an animal that makes bargains.
Sophocles c.496-406
Antigone
There are many wonderful things, and nothing is more wonderful than man.
Spinoza Baruch 1632-1677
Ethics
Man is a social animal.
Steinbeck John 1902-1968
The Grapes of Wrath
Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, merges ahead of his accomplishments.
Storr Anthony
That man is an aggressive creature will hardly be disputed. With the exception of certain rodents, no other vertebrate habitually destroys members of its own species.
Sumner William Graham 1840-1874
The forgotten man. He is the clean, quiet, virtuous domesticcitizen who pays his debts and his taxes and is never heard
of outside his little circle.... He works, he votes, generally he prays, but his chief business in life is to pay.
Swift Jonathan 1667-1745
Letter to Pope
Principally I hate and detest that animal called man; although
I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.
Swinburne Algernon Charles 1837-1909
„Hymn of Man"
But God, if a God there be, is the substance of men which is man.
Tarkington Booth 1869-1946
Penrod
There are two things that will be believed or any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has taken to drink.
Tennyson Alfred Lord 1809-1892
Idylls of the King „The Coming of Arthur"
Man's word is God in man.
Tennyson Alfred Lord 1809-1892
Idylls of the King ‘The Marriage of Geraint'
For man is man and master of his fate.
Terence c.190-159 BC
Heauton Timorumenos
I am a man, I count nothing human foreign to me.
Thackeray William Makepeace 1811-1863
Henry Esmond
‘Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel.
Theocritus c.310-c.250 BC
Man will ever stand in need of man.
Thomas Dylan 1914-1953
(defining an alcoholic)
A man you don't like who drinks as much as you do.
Thurber James 1894-1961
Man is flying too fast for a world that is round. Soon he will catch up with himself in a great rear-end collision and Man will never know that what hit him from behind was Man.
Twain Mark 1835-1910
Following the Equator
Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to.
Wedgwood Josiah 1730-1795
(legend on Wedgwood cameo)
Am I not a man and a brother.
West Mae 1892-1980
in Belle of the Nineties
"A man in the house is worth two in the street."
Westcott Edward Noyes 1846-1898
The only man who can change his mind is the man who's got one.
White E.B. 1899-1985
Advice to young writers who want to get ahead without any annoying delays:don't write about Man,write about a man.
Whittington Robert c.1480-1530
(of Sir Thomas More)
A man for all seasons.
Woolf Virginia 1882-1941
A Room of One's Own
Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size.
Wordsworth William 1770-1850
‘Lines Written in Early Spring'
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.
Young Edward 1683-1765
Night Thoughts ‘Night 4'
Man wants but little, nor that little long.
Yourcenar Marguerite 1903-1987
He had come to that time in his life (it varies from every man) when a human being gives himself over to his demon or to his genius, according to a mysterious law which orders him either to destroy or to surpass himself.