Men Quotes - Page 172

The creature that wins against its environment destroys itself.

A man who knows a thing, recognizes a given danger, and sees with his own eyes the possibility of a remedy, damned well has the duty and the obligation not to work 'silently', but to stand up openly against the evil and for its cure. If he does not do so then he is a faithless, miserable weakling who fails either from cowardice or from laziness and incompetence....Every last agitator who possesses the courage to defend his opinions with manly forth-rightness, standing on a tavern table among his adversaries, accomplishes more than a thousand of these lying, treacherous sneaks.

Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.

Truth is the highest thing that man may keep.

No, not rich. I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing.

Our dependency makes slaves out of us, especially if this dependency is a dependency of our self-esteem. If you need encouragement, praise, pats on the back from everybody, then you make everybody your judge.

Men who have been raised violently have every reason to believe it is appropriate for them to control others through violence; they feel no compunction over being violent to women, children, and one another.

Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

The world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.

You can be on the cusp of something. Appreciate the cusp, not the something. Appreciate this moment now.

Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.

Writers should be read but not seen. Rarely are they a winsome sight.

My house was bugged. They couldn't find any information on me being a subversive because I happen to love America; I just don't like some of the things the government is doing.

You know, you do need mentors, but in the end, you really just need to believe in yourself.

The punch that knocks a man out is the punch that he doesn't see.

The Jews were destroying both Greeks and Romans. They ate the flesh of their victims, made belts for themselves out of their entrails, and daubed themselves with their blood... In all, 220,000 men perished in Cyrene and 240,000 in Cyprus, and for this reason no Jew may set foot in Cyprus today.

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president - not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen.

Once a man worries, he clings to anything out of desperation; and once he clings he is bound to get exhausted or to exhaust whomever or whatever he is clinging to. A warrior-hunter, on the other hand, knows he will lure game into his traps over and over again, so he doesn't worry.

Food history is as important as a baroque church. Governments should recognize cultural heritage and protect traditional foods. A cheese is as worthy of preserving as a sixteenth-century building.

You cannot make men good by law: and without good men you cannot have a good society.

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

How many times can a man turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn't see?

Perhaps you have noticed that even in the very lightest breeze you can hear the voice of the cottonwood tree; this we understand is its prayer to the Great Spirit, for not only men, but all things and all beings pray to Him continually in differing ways.

The indiscriminate denunciation of the rich is mischievous.... No poor man was ever made richer or happier by it. It is quite as illogical to despise a man because he is rich as because he is poor. Not what a man has, but what he is, settles his class. We can not right matters by taking from one what he has honestly acquired to bestow upon another what he has not earned.