Petty Men Quotes

My father was raised with brothers, he was a football player and a boxer, he was a chief petty officer in the Navy, he was a man of his times. ~ Hillary Clinton

I wanted them to be terrible, hideous monsters. But they aren't. They are petty men who ruin lives and don't even notice. ~ Pierce Brown

Evil is not one large entity, but a collection of countless, small depravities brought up from the muck by petty men. Many have traded the enrichment of vision for a gray fog of mediocrity--the fertile inspiration of striving and growth, for mindless stagnation and slow decay--the brave new ground of the attempt, for the timid quagmire of apathy. Many of you have traded freedom not even for a bowl of soup, but worse, for the spoken empty feelings of others who say that you deserve to have a full bowl of soup provided by someone else. Happiness, joy, accomplishment, achievement . . . are not finite commodities, to be divided up. Is a child's laughter to be divided and allotted? No! Simply make more laughter! Every person's life is theirs by right. An individual's life can and must belong only to himself, not to any society or community, or he is then but a slave. No one can deny another person their right to their life, nor seize by force what is produced by someone else, because that is stealing their means to sustain their life. It is treason against mankind to hold a knife to a man's throat and dictate how he must live his life. No society can be more important than the individuals who compose it, or else you ascribe supreme importance, not to man, but to any notion that strikes the fancy of the society, at a never-ending cost of lives. Reason and reality are the only means to just laws; mindless wishes, if given sovereignty, become deadly masters. Surrendering reason to fa ~ Terry Goodkind

Whether we are Christians or Muslims or nationalists or agnostics or atheists, we must first learn to forget our differences. If we have differences, let us differ in the closet; when we come out in front, let us not have anything to argue about until we get finished arguing with the man. If the late President Kennedy could get together with Khrushchev and exchange some wheat, we certainly have more in common with each other than Kennedy and Khrushchev had with each other. ~ Malcolm X

Vions are born in the soul of a man or woman who is consumed with the tension between what is and what could be. ~ Andy Stanley

The white men in our colonies are too frequently the savages ~ Alfred Russel Wallace

The acceptance of woman as object of the desiring male gaze in the visual arts is so universal that for a woman to question or draw attention to this fact is to invite derision, to reveal herself as one who does not understand the sophisticated strategies of high culture and takes art "too literally," and is therefore unable to respond to aesthetic discourses. This is of course maintained within a world - a cultural and academic world - which is dominated by male power and, often unconscious, patriarchal attitudes. In Utopia - that is to say, in a world in which the power structure was such that both men and women equally could be represented clothed or unclothed in a variety of poses and positions without any subconscious implications of dominance or submission - in a world of total and, so to speak, unconscious equality, the female nude would not be problematic. In our world, it is. ~ Linda Nochlin

To me religion is a deeply personal thing in which man and God go it alone together, without the witch doctor in the middle. The witch doctor tries to convince us that we have to ask God for help, to spell out to him what we need, even to bribe him with prayer or cash on the line. ~ Frank Sinatra

The world can only be free when men are content in themselves and each draws from his own fountain. ~ George William Russell

Knowledge is like money, the more a man gits the more he hankers for. ~ Josh Billings

It was a grungy, dangerous, bankrupt city without normal services most of the time. The garbage piled up and stank during long strikes of the sanitation workers. A major blackout led to days and days of looting. We gay guys wore whistles around our necks so we could summon help from other gay men when we were attacked on the streets by gangs living in the projects between Greenwich Village and the West Side leather bars ... The upside was that the city was inexpensive ... ~ Edmund White

Wise he is deemed who can question well, and also answer back: the sons of men can no secret make of the tidings told in their midst. 30. ~ Olive Bray

We think of "enemies" as these units of destruction on the other side of the line, hell-bent on destroying us. And, just like when the battle had begun outside the walls of Warrenville and I thought about the men in the tank and their families, it always hits the hardest when you realize your enemies have lives, too. ~ Ernie Lindsey

Never trust a man who carries a handkerchief, I always say. One of many prejudicial rules of thumb. ~ Haruki Murakami

A man with an excruciatingly painful condition wrote me and told me that his doctor said that the only cure for what he has is death, and he might want to consider suicide. What do you say to him? I doubt the, "Hey let's go get some coffee and talk" thing is going to be at all helpful. ~ Henry Rollins

The foolish of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of god is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that may not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called, but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath choses the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. And bade things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

Men are the fleas in the gray beard of God, and I'm just itching to meet Him. ~ Jarod Kintz

I have to think hard to name an interesting man who does not drink. ~ Richard Burton

People say I'm not good at writing about men. My dad left when I was 16. Give me a break. I'm doing the best I can. ~ Jennifer Weiner

Impress upon children the truth that the exercise of the elective franchise is a social duty of as solemn a nature as man can be called to perform; that a man may not innocently trifle with his vote; that every elector is a trustee as well for others as himself and that every measure he supports has an important bearing on the interests of others as well as on his own. ~ Daniel Webster

And while the sun and moon endure Luck's a chance but trouble's sure, I'd face it as a wise man would, And train for ill and not for good. ~ A.E. Housman

I have a confession: I'm not a man of simplicity. I spent my entire early career making complex stuff. Lots of complex stuff. ~ John Maeda

Men treat men differently than they would a woman. ~ Orlando Bloom

Is it not lack of faith that leads men to fear the scrutiny of reason? If the destination is doubtful, than the path must be fraught with fear. A robust faith need not fear, for if God exists, then reason cannot help but lead us to Him. Cogito, ergo Deus est,'says St. Augustine, I think, therefore God is. ~ Donna Woolfolk Cross

The fence and the boundary line are the symbols of the spirit of justice. They set the limits upon each man's interest to prevent one from taking advantage of the other. ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

It is among men of genius and science that atheism alone is found. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Universal history, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here. ~ Thomas Carlyle

A lot of gay men are in delusion if they think they're super macho. ~ Scott Thompson

Dear Deborah,

Words do not come easily for so many men. We are taught to be strong, to provide, to put away our emotions. A father can work his way through his days and never see that his years are going by. If I could go back in time, I would say some things to that young father as he holds, somewhat uncertainly, his daughter for the very first time. These are the things I would say:

When you hear the first whimper in the night, go to the nursery leaving your wife sleeping. Rock in a chair, walk the floor, sing a lullaby so that she will know a man can be gentle.

When Mother is away for the evening, come home from work, do the babysitting. Learn to cook a hotdog or a pot of spaghetti, so that your daughter will know a man can serve another's needs.

When she performs in school plays or dances in recitals, arrive early, sit in the front seat, devote your full attention. Clap the loudest, so that she will know a man can have eyes only for her.

When she asks for a tree house, don't just build it, but build it with her. Sit high among the branches and talk about clouds, and caterpillars, and leaves. Ask her about her dreams and wait for her answers, so that she will know a man can listen.

When you pass by her door as she dresses for a date, tell her she is beautiful. Take her on a date yourself. Open doors, buy flowers, look her in the eye, so that she will know a man can respect her.

When she moves away ~ Lisa Wingate

So you're suggesting we take the train up to York, meet a ninety-year-old man, leap on him, and yank out his hair? I'm sure the Clave will be
ecstatic."
"They'll just say you're mad," said Jessamine. "They already think it, so what's the difference, really? ~ Cassandra Clare

I'm always represented as a bit of a class warrior - a bit Down With Men and Down With Middle-Class People. Whereas I'm actually very fond of men and am middle-class. I even went to boarding school in Perthshire. ~ Denise Mina

Suppose that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity ... yet here there is this beautiful provision, that it is in thy power again to unite thyself. God has allowed this to no other part, after it has been separated and cut asunder, to come together again ... he has distinguished man, for he has put it in his power not to be separated at all from the universal ... he has allowed him to be returned and to be united and to resume his place as a part. ~ Marcus Aurelius

Before 'Mad Men,' I definitely had very dry spells and I know what those feel like, and I don't think that ever leaves you as an actor. ~ Rich Sommer

It is astonishing what power words have over men. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

But, as the ninth-century cultural critic Jahiz wrote, `Some people who affect asceticism and self denial are uneasy and embarrassed when cunt, cock and fucking are mentioned but most men you find like that are without knowledge, honour, nobility or dignity.'2 I have certainly not played up these features of the narrative, ~ Hugh Kennedy

No man had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him. ~ Edmund Burke

How many stopped-up men and women does it take to produce one Einstein? Ten? A thousand? A hundred thousand? ... So this is what Einstein meant when he looked me in the eye that day and said, I would be nothing without you. It was not success he saw written in my face. He saw, rather, that I would never accomplish anything at all. ~ Rana Dasgupta

There was not a single Negro slave owner who did not know dozens of Negroes just as capable of learning and efficiency as the mass of poor white people around and about, and some quite as capable as the average slaveholder. They had continually, in the course of the history of slavery, recognized such men. ~ W.E.B. Du Bois

Any woman who is sure of her own wits, is a match, at any time, for a man who is not sure of his own temper. ~ Wilkie Collins

It seems to me that a great university ought to have room in it for men subscribing to every sort of idea that is currently prevalent ~ H.L. Mencken

Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. ~ Douglas MacArthur