„This thought strengthened in me my belief that all men, without exception, deserve to be pitied, if only because they are alive.“

„Men are alive on this earth, only because the imperative human desire is to attack the enemies of human life.“

—  Rose Wilder Lane American journalist 1886 - 1968

Источник: Discovery of Freedom: Man's Struggle Against Authority (1943), p. viii.

„I was tired of chasing ghosts, hollow men who were outside my comfort zone, men who had nothing to give me except a rush. It was all I asked for, and all I ever got.“

—  Terry McMillan, книга Getting to Happy

Источник: Getting to Happy

„Now as of old the gods give men all good things, excepting only those that are baneful and injurious and useless. These, now as of old, are not gifts of the gods: men stumble into them themselves because of their own blindness and folly.“

—  Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907)

„I don't hold it against the men who beat me because undoubtedly there are some ruffians of every nationality and the English are not exceptions.“

—  Oswald Pohl Head of the SS Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt 1892 - 1951

To Leon Goldensohn, June 4, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.
"The Nuremberg Interviews"

„All of us, without being taught, have attained to a belief in some sort of divinity, though it is not easy for all men to know the precise truth about it, nor is it possible for those who do know it to tell it to all men.“

—  Julian (emperor), книга Against the Galilaeans

Against the Galilaeans (c. 362)
Контексте: All of us, without being taught, have attained to a belief in some sort of divinity, though it is not easy for all men to know the precise truth about it, nor is it possible for those who do know it to tell it to all men. … Surely, besides this conception which is common to all men, there is another also. I mean that we are all by nature so closely dependent on the heavens and the gods that are visible therein, that even if any man conceives of another god besides these, he in every case assigns to him the heavens as his dwelling-place; not that he thereby separates him from the earth, but he so to speak establishes the King of the All in the heavens as in the most honourable place of all, and conceives of him as overseeing from there the affairs of this world. What need have I to summon Hellenes and Hebrews as witnesses of this? There exists no man who does not stretch out his hands towards the heavens when he prays; and whether he swears by one god or several, if he has any notion at all of the divine, he turns heavenward. And it was very natural that men should feel thus.

„My mind is the only sanctuary that has not been stolen from me. Men have tried to breach it before, but I've learned to defend it vigorously, for I am only safe with my innermost thoughts.“

—  Christopher Paolini American author 1983

„They were all, according to my belief, devised by men, and all have for a foundation ignorance of this world and fear of the next.“

—  Robert G. Ingersoll Union United States Army officer 1833 - 1899

Rome, or Reason? A Reply to Cardinal Manning. Part I. The North American Review (1888)
Контексте: I have no Protestant prejudices against Catholicism, and have no Catholic prejudices against Protestantism. I regard all religions either without prejudice or with the same prejudice. They were all, according to my belief, devised by men, and all have for a foundation ignorance of this world and fear of the next. All the Gods have been made by men. They are all equally powerful and equally useless.

„Some men are alive simply because it is against the law to kill them.“

—  Эдгар Хоу 1853 - 1937

„My own belief is, if philosophers be entitled to any credit, that the Sun is the common parent of all men, to use a comprehensive term.“

—  Julian (emperor) Roman Emperor, philosopher and writer 331 - 363

Upon the Sovereign Sun (362)
Контексте: My own belief is, if philosophers be entitled to any credit, that the Sun is the common parent of all men, to use a comprehensive term. It is a true proverb, "Man begets man, and so does the Sun:" but souls that luminary showers down upon earth, both out of himself, and out of the other gods: which souls show to what end they were propagated by the kind of life that they pursue. But well is it for that man who, from the third generation backwards, and a long succession of years, has been dedicated to the service of this god; yet neither is that person's condition to be despised who, feeling in his own nature that he is a servant of this deity, alone, or with few on his side, shall have devoted himself to his worship.

„My work is atheistic, materialistic and communistic. It's atheistic because it's without transcendent form, without spiritual or intellectual quality. Materialistic because it's made out of it's own materials without pretension to other materials. And communistic because the form is equally accessible to all men.“

—  Carl Andre American artist 1935

Источник: Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology', 1995, p. 107

„To God, and not to man, are all men to account for their belief.“

—  Thomas Paine English and American political activist 1737 - 1809

1790s, Discourse to the Theophilanthropists (1798)
Контексте: It was the excess to which imaginary systems of religion had been carried, and the intolerance, persecutions, burnings, and massacres, they occasioned, that first induced certain persons to propagate infidelity; thinking, that upon the whole, that it was better not to believe at all, than to believe a multitude of things and complicated creeds, that occasioned so much mischief in the world. But those days are past, persecution has ceased, and the antidote then set up against it has no longer even the shadow of apology. We profess, and we proclaim in peace, the pure, unmixed, comfortable, and rational belief of a God, as manifested to us in the universe. We do this without any apprehension of that belief being made a cause of persecution as other beliefs have been, or of suffering persecution ourselves. To God, and not to man, are all men to account for their belief.

„Look upon men and pity them. Look at yourself amid all men and pity yourself. In the obscure dusk of life we touch and fumble at each other, we ask questions, we listen, we shout for help.“

—  Nikos Kazantzakis, книга The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

„For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something has been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.“

—  Wilfred Owen English poet and soldier (1893-1918) 1893 - 1918

Strange Meeting (1918)
Контексте: "Strange friend," I said, "Here is no cause to mourn."
"None," said the other, "Save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something has been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.

„Captain, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me. Captain, that is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave.“

—  Thomas Jackson Confederate general 1824 - 1863

Speaking to Captain John D. Imboden (24 July 1861), as quoted in Stonewall Jackson As Military Commander (2000) by John Selby, p. 25; sometimes quoted as "My religious beliefs teach me..."

„There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.“

—  Edmund Burke Anglo-Irish statesman 1729 - 1797

„Men tend to have the beliefs that suit their passions. Cruel men believe in a cruel God, and use their belief to excuse their cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly God, and they would be kindly in any case.“

—  Bertrand Russell logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist 1872 - 1970

In London Calling http://books.google.pt/books?id=l80fAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Men+tend+to+have+the+beliefs+that+suit+their+passions.%22&dq=%22Men+tend+to+have+the+beliefs+that+suit+their+passions.%22&hl=pt-PT&sa=X&ei=q9mEUcj-AoqM7AbW3IGoBQ&ved=0CFMQ6AEwBw (1947), p. 18
1940s

„To live without killing is a thought which could electrify the world, if men were only capable of staying awake long enough to let the idea soak in.“

—  Henry Miller American novelist 1891 - 1980

"Reunion in Brooklyn" http://books.google.com/books?id=uzz94pR0VQsC&q=%22To+live+without+killing+is+a+thought+which+could+electrify+the+world+if+men+were+only+capable+of+staying+awake+long+enough+to+let+the+idea+soak+in%22&pg=PA131#v=onepage, Sunday After the War (1944)

„Optimism has always seemed to me the cunning alibi of egoists, anxious to cover up their state of chronic self-satisfaction. They are optimists in order to avoid pitying other men and their misfortune. ~~ Yet pity is a vexed question.“

—  Georges Bernanos, книга Les grands cimetières sous la lune

Источник: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.38

„Those only deserve a monument who do not need one; that is, who have raised themselves a monument in the minds and memories of men.“

—  William Hazlitt English writer 1778 - 1830

No. 388
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)