A Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“A man who fights you as he does is no better than an opportunist and no worse than a thug.”
Source: Graceling
“A man who finds himself among others is irritated because he does not know why he is not one of the others. In bed next to a girl he loves, he forgets that he does not know why he is himself instead of the body he touches. Without knowing it, he suffers from the mental darkness that keeps him from screaming that he himself is the girl who forgets his presence while shuddering in his arms.”
Source: Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939
“A man who finds peace in the fume of his work is a man who knows himself and, therefore, knows what he must do. What is it that I would sacrifice myself to achieve? What is it that fills my lonely days and dowdy nights? What work consoles the soul? What action allows the brain to work at a fever, burn like an uncontrollable wildfire? What occupation, craft, or deed can I undertake that will embody a desire to share with other people my intellectual and emotional being? How does one express their worldly aspirations and spiritual yearnings?”
Source: Dead Toad Scrolls
“A man who finishes a book is always alone when he finishes it.”
Source: Scribble Scribble Notes on the Media
“A man who first tried to guess 'what the public wants,' and then preached that as Christianity because the public wants it, would be a pretty mixture of fool and knave”
Source: Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
“A man who flatters a woman hopes either to find her a fool or to make her one.”
Source: Letters and passages restored from the original manuscripts of the History of Clarissa. To which is subjoined, a collection of such of the moral and instructive sentiments ... contained in the History, as are presumed to be of general use and service ... Published for the sake of doing justice to the purchasers of the first two editions of that work
“A man who for an entire week does nothing but hit himself over the head has little reason to be proud.”
“A man who from the beginning has long been soaked in the languid atmosphere of a woman, the scent of her hands, her bosom, her knees, her hair, her lithe and flowing clothes,
Sweet bath, suavely
Scented with ointments,
has acquired a delicacy of skin, a refinement of tone, a kind of androgyny without which the toughest and most virile of geniuses remains, when it comes to artistic perfection, an incomplete being.”
“A man who gets divorced is not forever going to be talked about for it. There are very different standards that we have for women than we have for men.”
“A man who gets few letters does not open one lightly.”
Source: East of Eden
“A man who gets the reputation of rising at dawn can sleep to noon.”
“A man who gets up very early creates a new day within the same day!”
“A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.”
Source: All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays
“A man who gives his children habits of industry provides for them better than by giving them fortune.”
“A man who gives way to his passions is like a man who is shot by an enemy, catches the arrow in his hands, and then plunges it into his own heart. A man who is resisting his passions is like a man who is shot by an enemy, and although the arrow hits him, it does not seriously wound him because he is wearing a breastplate. But the man who is uprooting his passions is like a man who is shot by an enemy, but who strikes the arrow and shatters it or turns it back into his enemies heart.”
“A man who goes forth to take the life of another whom he does not know must believe only one thing: that by his act he will change the course of history.”
“A man who goes into a restaurant and blatantly disrespects the servers shows a strong discontent with his own being. Deep down he knows that restaurant service is the closest thing he will ever experience to being served like a king.”
Source: Killosophy
“A man who governs his passions is master of his world. We must either command them or be enslaved by them. It is better to be a hammer than an anvil.”
“A man who graduated high in his class at Yale Law School and made partnership in a top law firm would be celebrated. But a woman who accomplishes this is treated with suspicion.”
“A man who grows that much hair,' critics were fond of saying, 'must have a lot to hide.”
Source: 2061: Odyssey Three
“a man who had fallen among thieves lay by the roadside on his back dressed in fifteenthrate ideas wearing a round jeer for a hat”
Source: 100 Selected Poems
“A man who has a language consequently possesses the world expressed and implied by that language.”
Source: Black Skin, White Masks
“A man who has a vision is not able to use the power of it until after he has performed the vision on earth for the people to see.”
“A man who has any relish for fine writing either discovers new beauties or receives stronger impressions from the masterly strokes of a great author every time he peruses him; besides that he naturally wears himself into the same manner of speaking and thinking.”
Source: The British Essayists: Containing the Spectator, with Notes and General Index, and the Tatler and Guardian, with Notes and General Index
“A man who has attained mastery of an art reveals it in his every action.”
“A man who has become conscious of the absurd is for ever bound to it.”
Source: The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays
“A man who has been an animal has infinitely more knowledge of that animal than a man who has merely dissected one.”
Source: Arcturus Times Three
“A man who has been assiduous in acquiring the fruits of love will not cease loving even if he suffers a thousand calamities. Let Stephen, the disciple of Christ, and others like him persuade you of the truth of this (cf. Acts 7:60). Our Lord Himself prayed for His murderers and asked the Father to forgive them because they did not know what they were doing (cf. Luke 23:34).”
“A man who has been born into the house of a warrior and yet places no loyalty in his heart and thinks only of the fortune of his position will be flattering on the surface and construct schemes in his heart, will forsake righteousness and not reflect on his shame, and will stain the warrior's name of his household to later generations. This is truly regrettable.”
“A man who has been dead for a week in a hot trailer looks more like a man than you would first expect.”
Source: Cruddy: A Novel
“A man who has been in another world does not come back unchanged. One can't put the difference into words. When the man is a friend it may become painful: the old footing is not easy to recover.”
Source: Perelandra
“A man who has been in danger,
When he comes out of it forgets his fears,
And sometimes he forgets his promises.”
Source: Euripides: Alcestis. The Medea. The Heracleidae. Hippolytus. The Cyclops. Heracles. Iphigenia in Tauris. Helen. Hecuba. Andromache. The Trojan women
“A man who has been shot at is a new realist, and what do you say to a realist when the war is a war of ideals?”
Source: The Civil War Trilogy 3-Book Boxset (Gods and Generals, The Killer Angels, and The Last Full Measure)
“A man who has been the indisputable favorite of his mother keeps for life the feeling of a conqueror.”
Source: Letters of Sigmund Freud
“A man who has been through bitter experiences and travelled far enjoys even his sufferings after a time”
Source: The odyssey
“A man who has blown all his options can't afford the luxury of changing his ways. He has to capitalize on whatever he has left, and he can't afford to admit - no matter how often he's reminded of it - that every day of his life takes him farther and farther down a blind alley.”
“A man who has both feet planted firmly in the air can be safely called a liberal as opposed to the conservative, who has both feet firmly planted in his mouth.”
“A man who has bought a theory will fight a vigorous rearguard action against the facts.”
“A man who has broken with his past feels a different man. He will not feel it a shame to confess his past wrongs, for the simple reason that these wrongs do not touch him at all.”
Source: Young India
“A man who has built a world empire with only ideas and with love, not with swords and with archers, is the greatest amongst all the men!”
“A man who has caught a billion is not nearly as admirable as a boy (or even a man) who was caught by a million.”
“A man who has ceased to learn ought not to wander around loose in these dangerous times”
“A man who has come to the full realization of his responsibility to men won't stick to one man. It will be foolhardy if he does that.”
“A man who has committed a mistake and does not correct it is committing another mistake.”
Source: The wisdom of Confucius
“A man who has cured himself of all ridiculous prepossessions, and is fully, sincerely, and steadily convinced, from experience as well as philosophy, that the difference of fortune makes less difference in happiness than is vulgarly imagined; such a one does not measure out degrees of esteem according to the rent-rolls of his acquaintance. He may, indeed, externally pay a superior deference to the great lord above the vassal; because riches are the most convenient, being the most fixed and determinate, source of distinction. But his internal sentiments are more regulated by the personal characters of men, than by the accidental and capricious favours of fortune.”
Source: An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
“A man who has cured himself of all ridiculous prepossessions, and is fully, sincerely, and steadily convinced, from experience as well as philosophy, that the difference of fortune makes less difference in happiness than is vulgarly imagined; such a one does not measure out degrees of esteem according to the rent-rolls of his acquaintance. ... his internal sentiments are more regulated by the personal characters of men, than by the accidental and capricious favors of fortune.”
“a man who has decided upon self-destruction is far removed from mundane affairs, and to sit down and write his will would be, at that moment, an act just as absurd as winding up one’s watch, since together with the man, the whole world is destroyed; the last letter is instantly reduced to dust and, with it, all the postmen; and like smoke, vanishes the estate bequeathed to a nonexistent progeny.”
Source: THE EYE
“A man who has depths in his shame meets his destiny and his delicate decisions upon paths which few ever reach . . .”
Source: Writings of Nietzsche: Volume 1
“A man who has drank his drinks cold at the same expense for one week can never be presented with them warm again.”
“A man who has his initials on his pyjamas must be uncertain of himself. Surely you should know who you are at bed time.”