30 Thought-Provoking Quotes About Masculinity

“Stand true to your calling to be a man. Real women will always be relieved and grateful when men are willing to be men.” -Elisabeth Elliot

A few years ago, I was lost in the hardest and darkest season of my life. I didn’t know what do. So, I looked for answers. In a small, yellow, waterproof notebook, I recorded interesting quotes. Here are some that pertain to men and masculinity.

A man does what he must — in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures — and that is the basis of all human morality. -Winston Churchill

No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself. -Seneca

In the modern techno-industrial culture, it is possible to proceed from infancy into senility without ever knowing manhood. -Edward Abbey

Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and fervor. -Benjamin Disraeli

If boys don’t learn, men won’t know -Douglas Wilson

A man is what he thinks about all day long. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

The world of man is dreaming, it has gone mad in its sleep, and a snake is strangling it, but it can’t wake up. -D.H. Lawrence

The chief constituents of what we call manhood, are moral rather than intellectual. -J.S. Kieffer

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

A man should be able to hear, and to bear, the worst that could be said of him. -Saul Bellow

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society. -Theodore Roosevelt

A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by others. -Marcus Aurelius

Masculinity is not something given to you, but something you gain. And you gain it by winning small battles with honor. -Norman Mailer

The man who thinks he can and the man who thinks he can’t are both right. -Henry Ford

This is the test of your manhood: How much is there left in you after you have lost everything outside of yourself. -Orison Sweet Marden

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully. -Thomas Carlyle

A man without a smile on his face must not open a shop. -Chinese Proverb

If unwilling to rise in the morning, say to thyself. “I awake to do the work of a man.” -Marcus Aurelius

Manhood is the defeat of childhood narcissism. -David Gilmore

Genius is the power of carrying the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Here is the manliness of manhood, that a man has a good reason for what he does, and has a will in doing it. -Alexander Maclaren

Hardships is the native soil of manhood and self-reliance. -John Neal

A man’s got to have a code, a creed to live by, no matter his job. -John Wayne

It is not the situation which makes the man, but the man who makes the situation. -Frederick William Robertson

The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man which it forms. -Henri-Frederic Amiel

Duty is the essence of manhood. -George S. Patton

There is one rule, above all others, for being a man. Whatever comes, face it on your feet. -Robert Jordan

You have to be a man before you can be a gentleman. -John Wayne

Stand true to your calling to be a man. Real women will always be relieved and grateful when men are willing to be men. -Elisabeth Elliot