Manhood Quotes

• No man has ever risen to the stature of spiritual manhood until he has found that it is finer to serve somebody else than it is to serve himself.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Spiritual, Men, Giving

  Woodrow Wilson, Arthur Stanley Link, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, Princeton University (1981). “The papers of Woodrow Wilson”

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• It takes more courage to reveal insecurities than to hide them, more strength to relate to people then to dominate them, more 'manhood' to abide by thought-out principles rather than blind reflex. Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles and an immature mind.

  Alex Karras

  Strength, Success, Courage

  "Alex Karras obituary" by Michael Carlson, www.theguardian.com. October 11, 2012.

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• Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Motivational, Leadership, Life And Love

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• Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.

  Malcolm X

  Motivational, Freedom, Patriotic

  "Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements". Book edited by George Breitman, p. 111, 1965.

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• Adversity toughens manhood, and the characteristic of the good or the great man is not that he has been exempt from the evils of life, but that he has surmounted them.

  Patrick Henry

  Adversity, Men, Evil

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• To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Men, Responsible, Be A Man

  "Wind, Sand and Stars" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, translated by Lewis Galantière, (Ch. II), 1939.

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• Being a man is the continuing battle for one's life. One loses a bit of manhood with every stale compromise to the authority of any power in which one does not believe.

  H. Rap Brown

  Believe, Men, Battle

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• You seek the heights of manhood when you seek the depths of God.

  Edwin Louis Cole

  Height, Depth, Literature

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• If we don't own our manhood someone else will.

  Johnny Hunt

  Leadership, Ifs

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• Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervour.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Short Life, Life Is Too Short, Life Is Short

  "Coningsby, or The New Generation". Book by Benjamin Disraeli (Book VII, Chapter 2), 1844.

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• I want you to consider this distinction as you go forward in life. Being male is not enough; being a man is a right to be earned and an honor to be cherished. I cannot tell you how to earn that right or deserve that honor. . . but I can tell you that the formation of your manhood must be a conscious act governed by the highest vision of the man you want to be.

  Kent Nerburn

  Men, Forward In Life, Honor

  Kent Nerburn (2014). “Letters to My Son: A Father's Wisdom on Manhood, Life, and Love”, p.36, New World Library

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• 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.

  Sam Keen

  Men, Order, Two

  Sam Keen (2010). “Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man”, p.12, Bantam

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• A woman simply is, but a man must become.

  Camille Paglia

  Men, Masculinity, Elusive

  Camille Paglia (2011). “Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays”, p.82, Vintage

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• This is the test of your manhood: How much is there left in you after you have lost everything outside of yourself?

  Orison Swett Marden

  Men, Lost Everything, Tests

  Orison Swett Marden (1907). “The Optimistic Life”

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• If unwilling to rise in the morning, say to thyself, 'I awake to do the work of a man.'

  Marcus Aurelius

  Morning, Men, Awake

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• Years ago, manhood was an opportunity for achievement, and now it is a problem to be overcome.

  Garrison Keillor

  Opportunity, Years, Achievement

  Garrison Keillor (1990). “Lake Wobegon Days”, p.266, Penguin

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• We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the man who embodies victorious effort; the man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Winning, Men, Effort

  Theodore Roosevelt (1920). “Roosevelt's Writings: Selections from the Writings of Theodore Roosevelt”

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• In times past there were rituals of passage that conducted a boy into manhood, where other men passed along the wisdom and responsibilities that needed to be shared. But today we have no rituals. We are not conducted into manhood; we simply find ourselves there.

  Kent Nerburn

  Responsibility, Boys, Past

  Kent Nerburn (2014). “Letters to My Son: A Father's Wisdom on Manhood, Life, and Love”, p.36, New World Library

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• Common experience shows how much rarer is moral courage than physical bravery. A thousand men will march to the mouth of the cannon where one man will dare espouse an unpopular cause . . . True courage and manhood come from the consciousness of the right attitude toward the world, the faith in one's purpose, and the sufficiency of one's own approval as a justification for one's own acts.

  Clarence Darrow

  Peace, Attitude, Men

  Clarence Darrow, S. T. Joshi (2005). “Closing Arguments: Clarence Darrow on Religion, Law, and Society”, p.89, Ohio University Press

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• No true manhood can be trained by a merely intellectual process. You cannot train men by the intellect alone; you must train them by the heart.

  Joseph Parker

  Heart, Men, Intellectual

  Joseph Parker (1873). “Detached links, extracts from the writings and discourses of J. Parker, compiled by J. Lucas”, p.82

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• All men are timid on entering any fight. Whether it is the first or the last fight, all of us are timid. Cowards are those who let their timidity get the better of their manhood.

  George S. Patton

  Military, Fighting, Men

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• A man should be able to hear, and to bear, the worst that could be said of him.

  Saul Bellow

  Real Men, Able, Bears

  Saul Bellow (2015). “Ravelstein”, p.72, Penguin

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• Men are recognizing that they have been forced to conform to a very narrow and rather two-dimensional picture of maleness and manhood that they have never had the freedom to question.

  Andrew Cohen

  Men, Two, Conformity

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• Do what thy manhood bids thee do.

  Richard Francis Burton

  Thee

  Sir Richard Francis Burton (1894). “The Kasîdah (couplets) of Hâjî Abdû Al-Yazdi: A Lay of the Higher Law”

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• I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more, is none

  William Shakespeare

  Courage, Peace, Men

  'Macbeth' (1606) act 1, sc. 7, l. 46

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