Quotes about manhood
Camille Paglia -
Manhood coerced into sensitivity is no manhood at all.
Steve Harvey -
I'm not a relationship expert. I'm an expert on manhood.
Cory Booker -
My dad set a clear model for me for what manhood was all about.
Josh Hatcher - Manlihood: The 12 Pillars of Masculinity
Feelings are great, and they have a purpose, but it’s certainly not to guide your life. Whoever said, “Follow your heart” was a fool. Your “heart” is your emotional center. Emotions have a great purpose - to allow us to enjoy life, to mourn loss, to have a tangible way to experience love - but feelings are fickle, and they are not meant to be the guiding force in our life.
Stephen King - The Running Man
He understood well enough how a man with a choice between pride and responsibility will almost always choose pride--if responsibility robs him of his manhood.
Abhijit Naskar - 7 Billion Gods: Humans Above All
You can get the man out of stone-age, but not stone-age out of man.
Efrat Cybulkiewicz -
Penises... if used incorrectly it becomes man's worst enemy, his worst nightmare.
Terry Pratchett - Dodger
... responsibilities are the anvil on which a man is forged.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz - Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
I thought of what my mom had said. "You talk like a man." It was easier to talk like a man than to be one.
Lloyd Alexander - The Castle of Llyr
For man to be worthy of any rank, he must strive first to be a man.
Yuval Noah Harari - Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Patriarchy has been the normal in almost all agricultural and industrial societies. ...If patriarchy in Afro-Asia resulted from some chance occurrence, why were the Aztecs and Incas patriarchal? It is far more likely that even though the precise definition of man and woman varies between cultures, there is some universal biological reason why almost all cultures valued manhood over womanhood. We do not know what this reason is; there are plenty of theories, none of the convincing.
Mary Renault - The King Must Die
A man is at his youngest when he thinks he is a man, not yet realizing that his actions must show it.
A.G. Starling - It's a Love Game
[Lizzie Bennington to a reporter who has asked for her opinion about Jack Archer's celebrated thighs.] “When you come back from a set down and bring the match to a final set tiebreak and are a point away from winning the match, only to have what looks like an extremely fit player call a time out because of a cramp and then watch that player sit back and casually converse and laugh while you do your best to keep your mental focus and your body moving so you don’t grow cold and cramp yourself, I h
Mark Driscoll - and Life Together
Stop looking for the path of least resistance and start running down the path of greatest glory to God and good to others, because that's what Jesus, the Real Man, did.
T.F. Hodge - From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph Over Death and Conscious Encounters with "The Divine Presence"
A man who rightly governs self, may also govern family without the crippling cowardice, crutch of control.
Pietros Maneos -
Isn't it enough to be middle-aged and impeccably beautiful? Why must one be economically useful?
Josh Hatcher - Manlihood: The 12 Pillars of Masculinity
Mentorship happens organically, and you can’t just force it. Many men don’t even know HOW to mentor, and often mentor others by accident. It’s not a mentor’s responsibility to mentor, it’s the responsibility of the mentee to seek mentorship and appropriate it.
Josh Hatcher - Manlihood: The 12 Pillars of Masculinity
What books can you read to learn about this part of your life? What people do you need to confide in to grow deeper? What things do you need to stop doing in order to grow? What things do you need to start doing?
Lailah Gifty Akita -
A man must learn from his own mistakes, to be what he wishes to be.
David Joy - The Weight of This World
The conversations of men had always been muddy rivers, the surface's roiling a reflection of what's buried, but the bottom some mysterious thing that would always be hidden.
Toni Morrison - Jazz
I don’t want to be a free nigger; I want to be a free man.”“Don’t we all. Look. Be what you want--- white or black. Choose. But if you choose black, you got to act black, meaning draw your manhood up—quicklike, and don’t bring me no whiteboy sass.” Hunter’s Hunter and Godlen Gray
Alexander McCall Smith - The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Boys, men," she said. "They're all the same. They think that this [their manhood] is something special and they're all so proud of it. They do not know how ridiculous it is.
Ben Marcus - Notable American Women
I prefer men who don't fall down and weep, who absorb a blow, who do not scamper and yell when chased, but stand firm, crouch, square off, meet an attack with something like resistance, even if it kills them.
Roman Payne -
As for men, they must learn bravery and live for Pleasure and for Beauty. More important than those two things should stand only one thing for him... Honor. A man's honor should be more sacred to him than his life — especially in our age, a time when very few men know what honor is.
Habeeb Akande -
You become a man not when you reach a certain age, but when you reach a certain state of mind.
Daniel J. Rice - This Side of a Wilderness
A man without enemies is a dishonest man.
C. JoyBell C. -
The mark of a real man, is a man who can allow himself to fall deeply in love with a woman. But the reason why a man is often heartbroken, is because a woman can become overcome by the reality that she has made a man out of a boy, because it's just such an overwhelming process, a beautiful and powerful evolution. Therefore, a man needs to fall in love with a woman who knows that men don't happen every day, and when a man does happen, that's a gift! A gift not always given, and one that shouldn't
Douglas Wilson -
If boys don't learn, men won't know.
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik - Gentleman
Manhood had come to him, both in character and demeanour, not as it comes to most young lads, an eagerly-desired and presumptuously-asserted claim, but as a rightful inheritance, to be received humbly, and worn simply and naturally.
Nate Pyle - Man Enough: How Jesus Redefines Manhood
If Jesus looks too feminine to us, maybe it says more about our understanding of masculinity than it does about a possible conspiracy to feminize the church and men.
Barack Obama - The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
Someone once said that every man is trying to live up to his father's expectations or make up for their father's mistakes....
Irving Stone -
It's not macho to read? Nonsense. Reading is a stouthearted activity, disporting courage, keenness, stick-to-itness. It is also, in my experience, one of the most thrilling and enduring delights of life, equal to a home run, a slamdunk, or breaking the four-minute mile.
T. Real -
Boys do not long for fathers who will usher them through the gauntlet of psychological disconnect. They long for fathers who have themselves survived intact. Boys do not ache for their father's masculinity. They ache for their fathers' hearts.
John Steinbeck - with Occasional Reference to History
Why are you making no more songs?' I said to him in a tone like that. 'Why are you making no more songs?' 'I have grown to be a man. Only children make songs -- children and idiots.' [William the road-mender about Merlin]
Saul Bellow -
A man should be able to hear, and to bear, the worst that could be said of him.
Pat Conroy - The Lords of Discipline
The narrator analyzes that the maturing, passing away boy within him, "had issued me a challenge as he passed the baton to the man in me: He had challenged me to have the courage to become a gentle, harmless man.
Pete Townshend -
Rumors went round that I might be gay. In some ways, I was happy w/ this. Larry Rivers proved to me that a gay man could be wild, attractive, and courageous; in any case one's sexuality was becoming less of an issue every day. One of the great things about the British Mod movement was that being macho was no longer the only measure of manhood.
Kilroy J. Oldster - Dead Toad Scrolls
Virtually every tribe in the march towards civilization developed its tailored made initiation practices. In America, sports are part of the test for a young man’s initiation into manhood.
Yaganesh Derasari -
See yourself while crying this is only things that no man wants.
S.J. Kincaid -
Not just in America. When I left my primary school, my father said, 'Son, you are now a man,' then he gave me a scented candle and told me how babies are made." Vik fought to keep his lips from twitching.
Mary Crocker Cook - Codependency & Men
It also strikes me that male-to-male bonding can create a gender role conflict, as it challenges the myth of full independence. Heroism is an exception. In fact, heroism has a long tradition as part of manhood. Bonds formed through natural disaster or war are exceptions to the typical “self-reliance” rules. These are op-portunities for men to experience a type of connection with each other that is ordinarily prohibited by the “rules” of manhood.
John Steinbeck - Travels with Charley: In Search of America
A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child. And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of horror. For I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, choppe
Sam Keen - Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man
There are two questions a man must ask himself: The first is 'Where am I going?' and the second is 'Who will go with me?' If you ever get these questions in the wrong order you are in trouble.
Paul Fussell -
If we do not redefine manhood, war is inevitable.
Robert Bly - Iron John: A Book About Men
Finding the FatherMy friend, this body offers to carry us for nothing– as the ocean carries logs. So on some days the body wails with its great energy; it smashes up the boulders, lifting small crabs, that flow around the sides.Someone knocks on the door. We do not have time to dress. He wants us to go with him through the blowing and rainy streets, to the dark house.We will go there, the body says, and there find the father whom we have never met, who wandered out in a snowstorm the night we we
Tom Clancy - Patriot Games
To a man, professional soldiers despised terrorists, and each would dream about getting them in an even-up-battle; the idea of the Field of Honor had never died for the real professionals. It was the place where the ultimate decision was made on the basis of courage and skill, on the basis of manhood itself, and it was this concept that marked the professional soldier as a romantic, a person who truly believed in the rules.
Roman Payne -
I didn’t know then that young girls were a sort of poison, infectious to the man of age; and that men of age justly take woman of age to cure themselves of the diseases of youth.
Conn Iggulden - Khan: Empire of Silver
If he had learned anything in manhood, it was that it didn’t matter what other people thought of him—even the ones he respected. In the end, he would patch together a life, with its sorry errors and its triumphs, just as they had.
Abhijit Naskar - The Islamophobic Civilization: Voyage of Acceptance
Aggression, rage and violence are archetypal foundations of manhood.
Sarah J. Maas - Throne of Glass
He didn't know why, but seeing her made him feel like a man. She was something out of a dream - a dream in which he was not a spoiled young prince, but a king.
Louisa May Alcott - Modern Magic
She would make a man of me. She puts strength and courage into me as no one else can. She is unlike any girl I ever saw; there’s no sentimentality about her; she is wise, and kind, and sweet. She says what she means, looks you straight in the eye, and is as true as steel.
Josh Hatcher - Manlihood: The 12 Pillars of Masculinity
The root of the word “integrity” is “integer.” It’s a math term - and it refers to whole numbers. The word itself implies “wholeness.” These are the questions we must ask ourselves frequently. “Am I whole?” “Are there parts of my character that are lacking?
Fred Gipson - Old Yeller
That was as rough a thing as I ever heard tell of happening to a boy. And I'm mighty proud to learn how my boy stood up to it. You couldn't ask any more of a grown man... It's not a thing you can forget. I don't guess it's a thing you ought to forget. What I mean is, things like that happen. They may seem mighty cruel and unfair, but that's how life is part of the time. But that isn't the only way life is. A part of the time, it's mighty good. And a man can't afford to waste all the good part, w
Avra Amar Filion -
The shortest road man walks, is sadly the road of gratitude!
George MacDonald - Mary Marston
Mary was proud of her husband, not merely because he was a musician, but because he was a blacksmith. For, with the true taste of a right woman, she honored the manhood that could do hard work. The day will come, and may I do something to help it hither, when the youth of our country will recognize that, taken in itself, it is a more manly, and therefore in the old true sense a more _gentle_ thing, to follow a good handicraft, if it make the hands black as a coal, than to spend the day in keepin
Jason Versey - A Walk with Prudence
I believe a man’s finest hour often comes when he is at his weakest. When he is broken, affronted and at a place of great emotional transparency. It’s there he has the rare insight of an inescapable truth…he’s merely a man. As his bravado washes away into a puddle of reflective tears, it reveals that he is merely flesh, blood and bones and amounts to very little without the love and guidance of our creator. It’s only then, that I believe, a man begins to truly find his way.
Ursula K. Le Guin - A Wizard of Earthsea
Manhood is patience. Mastery is nine time patience
James Clarke - Every-Day Religion
All boys wish to be manly; but they often try to become so by copying the vices of men rather than their virtues. They see men drinking, smoking, swearing; so these poor little fellows sedulously imitate such bad habits, thinking they are making themselves more like men. They mistake rudeness for strength, disrespect to parents for independence. They read wretched stories about boy brigands and boy detectives, and fancy themselves heroes when they break the laws, and become troublesome and misch
Philip Roth - Portnoy's Complaint
A Jewish man with his parents alive is half the time a helpless infant!
Michael Gurian - The Good Son: Shaping the Moral Development of Our Boys and Young Men
The boy and the man must be raised to see the possibility of self worth, then meet a few others who provide the vision of a road toward it, then spend a lifetime pursing that worth through action and relationship. One of the great tragedies in human life is to be born a male and not be guided toward the value of a man.
The Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters -
Many of those who elected to remain might have escaped. 'Chivalry' is a mild appellation for their conduct. Some of the vaunted knights of old were desperate cowards by comparison. A fight in the open field, or jousting in the tournament, did not call out the manhood in a man as did the waiting till the great ship took the final plunge, in the knowledge that the seas round about were covered with loving and yearning witnesses whose own salvation was not assured.
The Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters -
It was a symposium of horror and heroism, the like of which has not been known in the civilized world since man established his dominion over the sea.
Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Scarlet Letter
I had ceased to be a writer of tolerably poor tales and essays, and had become a tolerably good Surveyor of the Customs. That was all. But, nevertheless, it is any thing but agreeable to be haunted by a suspicion that one's intellect is dwindling away; or exhaling, without your consciousness, like ether out of a phial; so that, at every glance, you find a smaller and less volatile residuum. Of the fact, there could be no doubt; and, examining myself and others, I was led to conclusions in refere
Lloyd Alexander - The Black Cauldron
That is why your sacrifice was all the more difficult. You chose to be a hero not through enchantment but through your own manhood.
Harshit Walia -
To respect law, a man carries mercy with his endeavours. To respect ethics, he moves on wasteful relationships.
Muhammad Imran Hasan -
One Life With Many Names, Childhood, Boyhood, Manhood And Old, Then? Then! All Unknown, Uncertain Destination....
John Greenleaf Whittier -
Peace hath higher tests of manhood, than battle ever knew.
Shakira -
A man's car is like an extension of their ego and their manhood.
Edwin Louis Cole -
You seek the heights of manhood when you seek the depths of God.
Chauncey Mitchell DePew -
In all ages woman has been the source of all that is pure, unselfish, and heroic in the spirit and life of man.....poetry and fiction are based upon woman's love, and the movements of history are mainly due to the sentiments or ambitions she has inspired......there is no aspiration which any man here to-night entertains, no achievement he seeks to accomplish, no great and honorable ambition he desires to gratify, which is not directly related to either or both a mother or a wife. From the hearth
Sol Luckman - Beginner's Luke
It was a rotten time to try to be a man in America. Until Blue came along I’d never even spent time around a man. Hell, I’d never even seen one. Where were all the men in this once great land?
bell hooks - and Love
Usually adult males who are unable to make emotional connections with the women they chose to be intimate with are frozen in time, unable to allow themselves to love for fear that the loved one will abandon them.
bell hooks - and Love
This fear of maleness that they inspire estranges men from every female in their lives to greater or lesser degrees, and men feel the loss. Ultimately, one of the emotional costs of allegiance to patriarchy is to be seen as unworthy of trust.
bell hooks - and Love
What the world needs now is liberated men who have the qualities Silverstein cites, men who are 'empathetic and strong, autonomous and connected, responsible to self, to family and friends, to society, and capable of understanding how those responsibilities are, ultimately, inseparable.' Men need feminist thinking. It it the theory that supports their spiritual evolution and their shift away from the patriarchal model. Patriarchy is destroying the well-being of men, taking their lives daily.
bell hooks - and Love
There seems to be a fear that if men are raised to be people of integrity, people who can love, they will be unable to be forceful and act violently if needed.... We see that females that are raised with the traits any person of integrity embodies can act with tenderness, with assertiveness, and with aggression if and when aggression is needed.
Jamie Le Fay - Gravitational Pull
I don't see how being handsome can possibly harm a man. It's just another cheap privilege that took zero effort to attain.
Jamie Le Fay - Gravitational Pull
Don't underestimate him, Morgan. Many, especially men, see the rise of minorities as a threat to their cultural and economic dominance. White men are losing their jobs to women, minorities and people at the other end of the supply chain in third world countries. Beleaguered voters will support him in the hope that he will restore their vanished status.""People won't take him seriously. This is the man that said on national TV that a woman's place is in the kitchen.""That may indeed be his bigges
Jamie Le Fay - Gravitational Pull
Do you really think that Walter has a chance of becoming president in two years?""Yes, I do. I believe that, in the next few years, we are likely to experience a war between a large population of disenfranchised, jobless, Western Caucasian men and everyone else. The status quo is being disrupted, and they don't like it. Don't expect them to give up power willingly. The forces you challenge are dangerous and don't play fair or clean.
Jamie Le Fay - Gravitational Pull
Manhood is, today, an uncertain, frail status that is easily threatened. Insecure men attempt to affirm their manliness physically and symbolically. Zanus's appeal speaks to the insecurities of men raised with traditional values; men trapped in a world that is pulling the rug under their feet and challenging everything they believe in.
bell hooks - All About Love: New Visions
Like many liberal men in the age of feminism, he believed women should have equal access to jobs and be given equal pay, but when it came to matters of home and heart he still believed caregiving was the female role. Like many men, he wanted a woman to be 'just like his mama' so that he did not have to do the work of growing up.
Debasish Mridha -
Now domestication and sophistication of men by women are the norm and acceptable by society, but they are terrible for manhood.
Erica Dakin - The Conspiracy
Is that how you get propositioned at the court? 'Mylady, would you be so kind as to allow me to put my manhood in your vagina'?
Lloyd Alexander - The Black Cauldron
It is strange,' he said at last. 'I had longed to enter the world of men. Now I see it filled with sorrow, with cruelty and treachery, with those who would destroy all around them.' 'Yet, enter it you must,' Gwydion answered, 'for it is a destiny laid on each of us. True, you have seen these things. But there are equal parts of love and joy.
Vinod Pande -
Was it a moment of indecision or was it a moment of redemption. Redemption long overdue and long unacknowledged? They didn’t know. He suddenly went at her mouth and she claimed it as if it was never supposed to be elsewhere. It was stormy. It was fierce. His manhood shafted through his loose night pajamas challenging her even beyond the thickness of her bath robe, which was cast aside in one unsparing sweep of his hand, revealing the quavering ripeness of her fulsome breasts. After a moment of a
Elizabeth Berg - The Pull of The Moon
It is such a terrifying thing to see a man cry.
Abhijit Naskar - Neurosutra: The Abhijit Naskar Collection
For a man, the optimal evolutionary strategy is to disseminate his genes as widely as possible, given his few minutes (or, alas, seconds) of investment in each encounter. It all makes simple evolutionary sense, since a woman invests a good deal of time and effort -a nine month long, risky, strenuous pregnancy, in each offspring. Naturally she has to be very discerning in her choice of sexual partners.
Herman Melville - The Whale
Looking into his eyes, you seemed to see there the yet lingering images of those thousand-fold perils he had calmly confronted through life. A staid, steadfast man, whose life for the most part was a telling pantomime of action, and not a tame chapter of sounds.
Ethan Allen -
Ever since I arrived to a state of manhood, I have felt a sincere passion for liberty. The history of nations doomed to perpetual slavery, in consequence of yielding up to tyrants their natural born liberties, I read with a sort of philosophical horror; so that the first systematical and bloody attempt at Lexington, to enslave America, thoroughly electrified my mind, and fully determined me to take part with my country.
Ogwo David Emenike -
A man's life is about keeping rules, breaking them, and making new ones.
Larissa Ione - Eternal Rider
Let a woman too close, and while she sucked your cock, she sucked your brains and manhood right out of you, too.
Augustine of Hippo - Sermons 1-19
[Y]ou are not ashamed of your sin [in committing adultery] because so many men commit it. Man's wickedness is now such that men are more ashamed of chastity than of lechery. Murderers, thieves, perjurers, false witnesses, plunderers and fraudsters are detested and hated by people generally, but whoever will sleep with his servant girl in brazen lechery is liked and admired for it, and people make light of the damage to his soul. And if any man has the nerve to say that he is chaste and faithful
Ursula K. Le Guin - Tehanu
The best I can say, it's like this. A man's in his skin, see, like a nut in its shell ... It's hard and strong, that shell, and it's all full of him. Full of grand man-meat, man-self. And that's all. That's all there is.A woman's a different thing entirely. Who knows where a woman begins and ends? Listen mistress, I have roots, I have roots deeper than this island. Deeper than the sea, older than the raising of the lands. I go back into the dark ... I go back into the dark! Before the moon I am,
John Piper - This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence
Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home.
Nate Pyle - Man Enough: How Jesus Redefines Manhood
Rather than trying to prove our masculinity, we need to accept who we are in the spirit of the gospel. Instead of trying to live up to some cultural standard of manhood, we need to accept God’s grace, which says, “I accept you just as you are.” It is culture, not God, that alienates those who do not live up to the existing, narrow definition of manhood.
Elisabeth Elliot - The Mark of a Man
The question is simply,'Who is your master?'Once that's settled, you ask whether any word have been spoken. If it has, you have your orders.
Elisabeth Elliot - The Mark of a Man
Stand true to your calling to be a man. Real women will always be relieved and grateful when men are willing to be men
Josh Hatcher - Manlihood: The 12 Pillars of Masculinity
Women are awesome! I may not agree with the politics behind a lot of contemporary feminism, I like to think that feminism at it’s core is a good thing. Women are not our underlings, they are not subservient, they are not objects created for our pleasure. They are our equals, and should be treated with the same respect and dignity that we expect for ourselves.
Josh Hatcher - Manlihood: The 12 Pillars of Masculinity
I know that women want to be treated equally - and they should be treated equally - but the truth is - no man should ever strike a woman unless he needs to protect his life or the life of another - and even then - fleeing the situation is a better option whenever possible. If you find yourself at a place where you are so angry that you want to strike a woman - then you need to get some help.
Rudyard Kipling - If: A Father's Advice to His Son
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,But make allowance for their doubting too;If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,Or being hated, don't give way to hating,And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wiseIf you can dream - and not make dreams your master;If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat t