Masculinity

Masculinity, or manliness, or manhood is a set of attributes, behaviors and roles generally associated with boys and men. It is a combination of socially-defined and biological factors, distinct from the definition of the male biological sex. Both men and women can exhibit masculine traits and behavior.

Quotes

 * Ever since I arrived to a state of manhood, I have felt a sincere passion for liberty.
 * Ethan Allen, as quoted in "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!" - American Heritage magazine Vol. 14, Issue 6 (October 1963).


 * Man seeks, in his manhood, not orders, not laws and peremptory dogmas, but counsel from one who is earnest in goodness and faithful in friendship, making man free.
 * Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Der Freund, published in Widerstand und Ergebung, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen aus der Haft (1952), p. 269.


 * Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee, With promise of strength and manhood full and fair!
 * Robert Bridges, On a Dead Child, st. 1 (1890).


 * Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause; He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws.
 * Richard Francis Burton, The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870), VIII.


 * Men are about hierarchy. They walk into a room, figure out who the top dog is, and then see where they stand in relation to everyone else.
 * Lynda Carter, "Lynda Carter: What I've Learned" by Cal Fussman, Esquire, Jan 29, 2007


 * Amazon society, as mythology, history, and universal male nightmare, represents a culture in which women reign culturally supreme because of their gender. Amazon societies are also important because women were trained to be warriors—military and, presumably, in other ways as well...
 * Phyllis Chesler, Women and Madness, (1972)


 * The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food.
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836), Chapter 1.


 * In this life-long fight, to be waged by every one of us singlehanded against a host of foes, the last requisite for a good fight, the last proof and test of our courage and manfulness, must be loyalty to truth — the most rare and difficult of all human qualities. For such loyalty, as it grows in perfection, asks ever more and more of us, and sets before us a standard of manliness always rising higher and higher.
 * Thomas Hughes, The Manliness of Christ‎ (1880), p. 29.


 * Among us English-speaking peoples especially do the praises of poverty need once more to be boldly sung. We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise any one who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. If he does not join the general scramble and pant with the money-making street, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition. We have lost the power even of imagining what the ancient idealization of poverty could have meant: the liberation from material attachments, the unbribed soul, the manlier indifference, the paying our way by what we are or do and not by what we have, the right to fling away our life at any moment irresponsibly,—the more athletic trim, in short, the moral fighting shape. When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.
 * William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1920), p. 368.


 * You have to stand guard over the development and maintenance of democracy, social justice and the equality of manhood in your own native soil. With faith, discipline and selfless devotion to duty, there is nothing worthwhile that you cannot achieve.
 * Muhammad Ali Jinnah, address to the officers and men of the 5th Heavy Ack Ack and 6th Light Ack Ack Regiments in Malir, Karachi February 21, 1948.


 * We must work our destiny in our own way and present to the world an economic system based on true Islamic concept of equality of manhood and social justice. We will thereby be fulfilling our mission as Muslims and giving to humanity the message of peace which alone can save it and secure the welfare, happiness and prosperity of mankind.
 * Muhammad Ali Jinnah, speech at the opening ceremony of the State Bank of Pakistan, Karachi July 1, 1948.


 * Masculinity is not something given to you, but something you gain. And you gain it by winning small battles with honor. Because there is very little honor left in American life, there is a certain built-in tendency to destroy masculinity in American men.
 * Norman Mailer, Cannibals and Christians (1966), first published in Playboy magazine as "Petty Notes on Some Sex in America" (1961 - 1962).


 * Stan: Just because we rip on you for being rich doesn't mean we don't like you.
 * Kyle: Yeah we're guys dude; we find something about all our friends to rip on. We make fun of you for being rich like we rip on Butters for acting wimpy.
 * Trey Parker, "Here Comes the Neighborhood", South Park, November 28, 2001


 * The fallacy in Hollywood is that if you’re making a 'feminist’ story, the woman kicks ass and wins. That’s not feminist, that’s macho. Unfortunately, there are still not that many girls going into science, engineering and technology.
 * Natalie Portman "Natalie Portman interview for Thor: 'A woman kicking ass isn't feminist. That's macho'", Elaine Lipworth, The Telegraph, 29 Oct 2013.


 * And gentlemen in England, now a-bed, Shall think themselves accurs'd, they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap, whiles any speaks, That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
 * William Shakespeare, Henry V, King Henry, scene iii.


 * These jewels, whereupon I chanced Divinely, are the kingdom's, not the King's — For public use: henceforward let there be, Once every year, a joust for one of these: For so by nine years' proof we needs must learn Which is our mightiest, and ourselves shall grow In use of arms and manhood.
 * Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King, "Lancelot and Elaine".


 * I have always disliked being a man. The whole idea of manhood in America is pitiful, in my opinion. This version of masculinity is a little like having to wear an ill-fitting coat for one's entire life (by contrast, I imagine femininity to be an oppressive sense of nakedness).
 * Paul Theroux, "Being a Man" (1983), from Sunrise with Seamonsters: Travels and Discoveries, 1964-84 (Houghton Mifflin, 1986, ISBN 0-395-41501-2, 384 pages), p. 309.


 * The idea that lack of paternal guidance can explain today's masculinity crisis doesn't make sense. I suspect rather that underneath the sons' charge that their fathers did not teach them how to be men lies another, unadmitted complaint — that their fathers taught them only too well how to be men, and they are choking on the lesson. These men, as boys, faced the age-old tradeoff: If you undergo the painful process of renouncing the "feminine" aspects of your humanity and follow your father into manhood (and what choice do you have, really?) you will share in the spoils of the superior half of the race. Now, as men, they find that the spoils are far more meager than expected. No wonder they feel betrayed.
 * Ellen Willis "How Now, Iron Johns?", The Nation (13 December 1999)


 * Surely we have had enough of confusing maleness with "usefulness" and other human virtues. If men had a more modest view of what their masculinity ought to entail, perhaps they could move on from debilitating feelings of loss to tackling their real economic and political problems.
 * Ellen Willis "How Now, Iron Johns?", The Nation (13 December 1999)

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

 * Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).


 * There is a great deal more correctness of thought respecting manhood in bodily things than in moral things. For men's ideas of manhood shape themselves as the tower and spire of cathedrals do, that stand broad at the bottom, but grow tapering as they rise, and end, far up, in the finest lines, and in an evanishing point. Where they touch the ground they are most, and where they reach to the heaven they are least.
 * Henry Ward Beecher, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 404.


 * I long to have the children feel that there is nothing in this world more attractive, more earnestly to be desired than manhood in Jesus Christ.
 * Henry Ward Beecher, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 405.


 * Power in its measure and degree is the measure of manhood.
 * Josiah Gilbert Holland, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 404.


 * Give us an age in which Christian manhood shall assert itself as the highest earthly thing and the noblest earthly estate. Give us an age that, instead of whining and groaning under the truth, shall rejoice in the truth. Give us an age which, lifted into identity with its highest possessions, shall be made by those possessions patient, pure, heroic, and honorable.
 * Josiah Gilbert Holland, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 404.


 * The conscience of every man recognizes courage as the foundation of manliness, and manliness as the perfection of human character.
 * Thomas Hughes, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 405.


 * In proportion as man gets back the spirit of manliness, which is self-sacrifice, affection, loyalty loan idea beyond himself, a God above himself, so far will he rise above circumstances, and wield them at his will.
 * Charles Kingsley, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 405.


 * The manliness of Christian love, and the putting away from ourselves of all fear, because we are " perfected in love," is one of the highest lessons that the gospel teaches us, and one of the greatest things which the gospel gives us.
 * Alexander Maclaren, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 405.


 * A male hero, at best, lacks the qualities of maternal love and tenderness which are as essential to a normal child as the breath of life. Suppose your child's ideal becomes a superman who uses his extraordinary power to help the weak. The most important ingredient in the human happiness recipe still is missing-love. It's smart to be strong. It's big to be generous. But it's sissified according to exclusively masculine rules, to be tender, loving affectionate, and alluring. "Aw, that's girl's stuff!" snorts our young comics reader. "Who wants to be a girl?" And that's the point. Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.
 * William Moulton Marston The Secret History of Wonder Woman, (2014) by Jill Lepore


 * "The work of men" — and what is that? Well, we may any of us know very quickly, on the condition of being wholly ready to do it. But many of us are for the most part thinking, not of what we are to do, but of what we are to get; and the best of us are sunk into the sin of Ananias, and it is a mortal one — we want to keep back part of the price; and we continually talk of taking up our cross, as if the only harm in a cross was the weight of it — as if it was only a thing to be carried, instead of to be — crucified upon. "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts."
 * John Ruskin, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 405.


 * The man, whom I call deserving the name, is one whose thoughts and exertions are for others rather than himself.
 * Walter Scott, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 404.


 * Obedience, submission, discipline, courage — these are among the characteristics which make a man.
 * Samuel Smiles, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 404.


 * A Christian is the gentlest of men; but then he is a man.
 * Charles Spurgeon, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 404.


 * Once men realize that they are also deprived — not as much as women, just as whites are not as deprived as blacks — but there is a full circle of human qualities we all have a right to. And they're confined to the "masculine" ones, which are seventy percent of all of them, and we're confined to the "feminine" ones, which are thirty percent. We're missing more, but they're still missing a lot. If a man fights to be his whole self, to be creative, to express emotions men are not supposed to express, do jobs men are not supposed to do, take care of his own children — all of these things are part of the feminist movement.
 * Gloria Steinem, in an interview with Marianne Schnall (3 April 1995)


 * The finest fruit earth holds up to its Maker is a finished man.
 * Wilhelm von Humboldt, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 404.