Quotes about men
men civilization justice
Our civilization has decided that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity. Gilbert K. Chesterton
men talking civilization
The true savage is a slave, and is always talking about what he must do; the true civilised man is a free man, and is always talking about what he may do.
men normal ordinary
The primary paradox of Christianity is that the ordinary condition of man is not his sane or sensible condition; that the normal itself is an abnormality.
men tea finals
I would look at the first chapter of any new novel as a final test of its merits. If there was a murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I read the story. If there was no murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I dismissed the story as tea-table twaddle, which it often really was.
men errors passing
Teach to the young, men's enduring truths, and let the learned amuse themselves with their passing errors.
men long heaven
As long as the vision of heaven is always changing, the vision of earth will be exactly the same. No ideal will remain long enough to be realized, or even partly realized. The modern young man will never change his environment; for he will always change his mind.
men doors knocking
Every time a man knocks on a brothel door, he is really knocking for God
men ordinary knows
All men are ordinary men; the extraordinary men are those who know it.
men may said
Whatever else may be said of man, this one thing is clear: He is not what he is capable of being.
men law wish
When it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.
men arguing apologetic
It is generally the man who is not ready to argue, who is ready to sneer.
men mad logic
In the main, and from the beginning of time, mysticism has kept men sane. The thing that has driven them mad was logic.
men evil may
Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil.
men cake ideas
The Sentimentalist, roughly speaking, is the man who wants to eat his cake and have it. He has no sense of honor about ideas; he will not see that one must pay for an idea as well as for anything else. He will have them all at once in one wild intellectual harem, no matter how much they quarrel and contradict each other.
men talking doe
If a man does not talk to himself, it is because he is not worth talking to.
men two firsts
There are two kinds of charlatan: the man who is called a charlatan, and the man who really is one. The first is the quack who cures you; the second is the highly qualified person who doesn't.
men two people
There are two kinds of peacemakers in the modern world; and they are both, though in various ways, a nuisance. The first peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that he agrees with everybody. He confuses everybody. The second peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that everybody agrees with him. He enrages everybody. Between the two of them they produce a hundred times more disputes and distractions than we poor pugnacious people would ever have thought of in our lives.
men unique mad
Lord! what a strange world in which a man cannot remain unique even by taking the trouble to go mad!
men gold age
The golden age only comes to men when they have forgotten gold.
men long telling-the-truth
Whether a man chooses to tell the truth in long sentences or short jokes is a problem analogous to whether he chooses to tell the truth in French or in German.
men order roots
It is the root of all religion that a man knows that he is nothing in order to thank God that he is something.
men water doubt
Modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity. They began with the fact of sin-a fact as practical as potatoes. Whether or not man could be washed in miraculous waters, there was no doubt at any rate that he wanted washing.
men order greed
The miser is the man who starves himself and everybody else, in order to worship wealth in its dead form, as distinct from its living form.
men gun power
The power which makes a man able to entertain a good impulse is the same as that which enables him to make a good gun; it is imagination.
men rich pity
All but the hard hearted man must be torn with pity for this pathetic dilemma of the rich man, who has to keep the poor man just stout enough to do the work and just thin enough to have to do it.
men good-man morality
It's not that we don't have enough scoundrels to curse; it's that we don't have enough good men to curse them.
men civilization medicine
Over-civilization and barbarism are within an inch of each other. And a mark of both is the power of medicine-men.
men swings ideas
The whole curse of the last century has been what is called the Swing of the Pendulum; that is, the idea that Man must go alternately from one extreme to the other. It is a shameful and even shocking fancy; it is the denial of the whole dignity of the mankind. When Man is alive he stands still. It is only when he is dead that he swings.
men progress looks
Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.
men use reason
When learned men begin to use their reason, then I generally discover that they haven't got any.
men principles life-is
Life is indeed terribly complicated—to a man who has lost his principles.
men thinking talking
Think of all those ages through which men have had the courage to die, and then remember that we have actually fallen to talking about having the courage to live.
men pistols use
I am going to hold a pistol to the head of the Modern Man. But I shall not use it to kill him–only to bring him to life.