He is of the earth, but his thoughts are with the stars. Mean and petty his wants and his desires; yet they serve a soul exalted with grand, glorious aims,—with immortal longings,—with thoughts which sweep the heavens, and wander through eternity. A pigmy standing on the outward crest of this small planet, his far-reaching spirit stretches outward to the infinite, and there alone finds rest.—Carlyle.
Alas! what does man here below? A little noise in much obscurity.—Victor Hugo.
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and movement, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!—Shakespeare.
Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool. It seems as if heaven had sent its insane angels into our world as to an asylum. And here they will break out into their native music, and utter at intervals the words they have heard in heaven; then the mad fit returns, and they mope and wallow like dogs!—Emerson.
In my youth I thought of writing a satire on mankind; but now in my age I think I should write an apology for them.—Walpole.
Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal.—Alexander Hamilton.
I considered how little man is, yet, in his own mind, how great! He is lord and master of all things, yet scarce can command anything. He is given a freedom of his will; but wherefore? Was it but to torment and perplex him the more? How little avails this freedom, if the objects he is to act upon be not as much disposed to obey as he is to command!—Burke.
Men's natures are neither white nor black, but brown.—Charles Buxton.
He is compounded of two very different ingredients, spirit and matter; but how such unallied and disproportioned substances should act upon each other, no man's learning yet could tell him.—Jeremy Collier.
Man is the highest product of his own history. The discoverer finds nothing so grand or tall as himself, nothing so valuable to him. The greatest star is at the small end of the telescope, the star that is looking, not looked after nor looked at.—Theodore Parker.