A man may twist as he pleases, and do what he pleases, but he inevitably comes back to the track to which nature has destined him.—Goethe.
Men may rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things.—Tennyson.
It is an error to suppose that a man belongs to himself. No man does. He belongs to his wife, or his children, or his relations, or to his creditors, or to society in some form or other.—G.A. Sala.
The record of life runs thus: Man creeps into childhood,—bounds into youth,—sobers into manhood,—softens into age,—totters into second childhood, and slumbers into the cradle prepared for him,—thence to be watched and cared for.—Henry Giles.
How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man!
—Young.
He is the whole encyclopædia of facts. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn; and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie folded already in the first man.—Emerson.
Man is an animal that cooks his victuals.—Burke.
Man is an animal that makes bargains; no other animal does this,—one dog does not change a bone with another.—Adam Smith.
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.
—Pope.
His life was gentle; and the elements
So mix'd in him, that nature might stand up
And say to all the world, "This was a man!"
—Shakespeare.