#sit

I mean a man whose hopes and aims may sometimes lie (as most men's sometimes do, I dare say) above the ordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough after all if it should prove to be a way of usefulness and good service leading to no other. All generous spirits are ambitious, I suppose, but the ambition that calmly trusts itself to such a road, instead of spasmodically trying to fly over it, is of the kind I care for. ↗

— Charles Dickens

#contentment #diligence #generosity #service #usefulness

--the ethereal, fine-nerved, sensitive girl, quite unfitted by temperament and instinct to fulfil the conditions of the matrimonial relation with Phillotson, possibly with scarce any man... ↗

— Thomas Hardy

#ethereal #matrimony #men #nerves #prude

All men are, at times, influenced by inexplicable sentiments. Ideas haunt them in spite of all their efforts to discard them. Prepossessions are entertained, for which their reason is unable to discover any adequate cause. The strength of a belief, when it is destitute of any rational foundation, seems, of itself, to furnish a new ground for credulity. We first admit a powerful persuasion, and then, from reflecting on the insufficiency of the ground on which it is built, instead of being prompted to dismiss it, we become more forcibly attached to it. ↗

— Charles Brockden Brown

#obsession #perversity #men

Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtue we write in water. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#transitory #vice #virtue #men

Had you accepted that third counsel of the mighty spirit, you would have furnished all that man seeks on earth, that is: someone to bow down to, someone to take over his conscience, and a means for uniting everyone at last into a common, concordant, and incontestable anthill - for the need for universal union is the third and last torment of men. ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#men

I'm a shreddermouf, aren't I?' 'I was afraid of that,' said Tansy. He was going to keep her in his larder until he was hungy again, and then he was going to rip her apart. 'Dis is my lair', said the shreddermouth proudly. 'It's de best lair in Tiratattle.' 'Is it?' said Tansy. 'Oh yes. It's a drainage tunnel. Goes right up to de surface, it does. Lots of storage space. My name's Gulp.' 'Tansy,' said Tansy, deciding not to ask him what he kept in his storage space and wondering whether introductions were quite the thing. ↗

— Elizabeth Kay

#hopeless-situation #humor #introductions #lair #men-eating-monster

But then he touched the flowers With the dry tips of his fingers. "Tell me how men kiss you. Tell me how you kiss. ↗

— Anna Akhmatova

#the-guest #the-visitor #men

Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#greed #wealth #money

God doesn't make us rich so we can indulge ourselves and spoil our children, or so we can insulate ourselves form needing God's provision. God gives us abundant material blessing so that we can give it away, and give it generously. ↗

— Randy Alcorn

#heaven #help #kingdom #money #s

Mum repeated the old adage that money can't buy you everything...before adding that she prefers using credit cards instead. ↗

— Kirkland Ciccone

#money