Modern Man Quotes

• Modern man is drinking and drugging himself out of awareness, or he spends his time shopping, which is the same thing.

  Ernest Becker

  Drinking, Men, Shopping

  Ernest Becker (1985). “The Denial of Death”, New York : Free Press

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• The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less.

  Vaclav Havel

  Hero, Men, Tragedy

  "Letters to Olga". Book by Vaclav Havel, 1988.

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• The classical man's worst fear was inglorious death; the modern man's worst fear is just death

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Fear, Men, Modern

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2010). “The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms”, p.96, Random House

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• I am truly horrified by modern man. Such absence of feeling, such narrowness of outlook, such lack of passion and information, such feebleness of thought.

  Alexander Herzen

  Passion, Men, Feelings

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• Modern man is frantically trying to earn enough to buy things he's too busy to enjoy.

  Frank A. Clark

  Money, Men, Shopping

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• If the world is to change for the better it must start with a change in human consciousness, in the very humanness of modern man.

  Vaclav Havel

  Men, World, Change For The Better

  "Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvizdala". Book by Vaclav Havel translated by Paul Wilson (Chapter 1: Growing Up "Outside", p. 11), 1990.

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• The dollar sign is the only sign in which the modern man appears to have any real faith.

  Helen Rowland

  Real, Men, Dollars

  Helen Rowland (1909). “Reflections of a Bachelor Girl”

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• Modern man is weighed down more by the burden of responsibility than by the burden of sin. We think him more a savior who shoulders our responsibilities than him who shoulders our sins. If instead of making decisions we have but to obey and do our duty, we feel it as a sort of salvation.

  Eric Hoffer

  Responsibility, Men, Thinking

  "The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms". Book by Eric Hoffer. Section 84, 1955.

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• Modern capitalism needs men who cooperate smoothly and in large numbers; who want to consume more and more; and whose tastes are standardized and can be easily influenced and anticipated ... what is the outcome? Modern man is alienated from himself, from his fellow man and from nature.

  Erich Fromm

  Men, Numbers, Needs

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• Modern man lives isolated in his artificial environment, not because the artificial is evil as such, but because of his lack of comprehension of the forces which make it work- of the principles which relate his gadgets to the forces of nature, to the universal order. It is not central heating which makes his existence 'unnatural,' but his refusal to take an interest in the principles behind it. By being entirely dependent on science, yet closing his mind to it, he leads the life of an urban barbarian.

  Arthur Koestler

  Men, Order, Evil

  Arthur Koestler (1969). “The Act of Creation”

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• We hope to find more pieces of the puzzle which will shed light on the connection between this upright, walking ape, our early ancestor, and modern man.

  Richard Leakey

  Men, Light, Connections

  "A Wealth of Human Fossils Could Soon Be Destroyed". Interview with Stefan Aust and Thilo Thielke, www.spiegel.de. October 27, 2005.

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• Modern man must descend the spiral of his own absurdity to the lowest point; only then can he look beyond it. It is obviously impossible to get around it, jump over it, or simply avoid it.

  Vaclav Havel

  Hero, Men, Looks

  "Disturbing the Peace". Book by Vaclav Havel, 1986.

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• A 'modern' man has nothing to add to modernism, if only because he has nothing to oppose it with. The well-adapted drop off the dead limb of time like lice.

  Elias Canetti

  Men, Lice, Add

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• The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.

  Carl Jung

  Friendship, Relationship, Positive

  Carl Gustav Jung (2001). “Modern Man in Search of a Soul”, p.49, Psychology Press

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• Although he may not always recognize his bondage, modern man lives under a tyranny of numbers.

  Nicholas Eberstadt

  Math, Men, Numbers

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• Modern man is too impatient and wants to master the art of meditation immediately.

  Rama Swami

  Art, Men, Meditation

  Swami Rama (1977). “Freedom from the Bondage of Karma”, p.73, Himalayan Institute Press

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• Modern man is battered by the fundamental forces of his own psyche.

  Carl Jung

  Men, Modern, Force

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• The ancient man approached God (or even the gods)as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty, and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the bench and God is in the dock.

  C. S. Lewis

  War, Men, Should Have

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• The plight of modern man is that he is condemmed to be free.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Men, Plight, Modern

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• Since the invention of the flush toilet and the vacuum carpet cleaner, the modern man seems to judge a man's moral standards by his cleanliness, and thinks a dog the more highly civilized for having a weekly bath and a winter wrapper round his belly.

  Lin Yutang

  Dog, Winter, Men

  Yutang Lin (1939). “My country and my people”

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• All Modern Men are descended from a Wormlike creature but it shows more on some people.

  Will Cuppy

  Science, Men, People

  Will Cuppy, P. G. Wodehouse (2005). “How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes”, p.18, David R. Godine Publisher

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• Nothing is so aggravating as calmness. There is something positively brutal about the good temper of most modern men.

  Oscar Wilde

  Anger, Men, Rage

  Oscar Wilde (2004). “The Best of Oscar Wilde: Selected Plays and Writings”, p.127, Penguin

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• Unlike modern man, who dreams of the world he will make, pre-modern man dreamed of the world he left.

  Robert Heilbroner

  Dream, Men, World

  "The Future As History". Book by Robert L. Heilbroner, Chapter I, Part 3, The Future as the Mirror of the Past, p. 19, 1960.

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• Modern man threw a brick through his own window in order to sell himself a burglar alarm.

  Allen Carr

  Men, Order, Bricks

  Allen Carr (2009). “Easy Way to Control Alcohol”, p.80, Arcturus Publishing

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• For millenia, man remained what he was for Aristotle: a living animal with the additional capacity for a political existence; modern man is an animal whose politics places his exitence as a living being in question.

  Michel Foucault

  Animal, Men, Political

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