Man
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2.Man's distinction from the brutes
2a.Reason and speech as man's distinguishing mark
See also: Animal 2a · Language 1a
Aesop, FablesVol. 17
- p. 25Man claims superiority over lions through intelligence.read · scan
Sophocles, AntigoneVol. 8
- p. 266–267Chorus praises man's speech, thought and skill, yet he cannot escape death and may turn to good or evil.read · scan
Epictetus, The Golden Sayings of EpictetusVol. 2
- p. 117–118Man's distinct function as a reasonable being is to praise God, as a swan or nightingale follows its nature.read · scan
- p. 120–121Man should not stop where the brutes do but proceed to contemplation, understanding and life in harmony with nature.read · scan
- p. 171Man alone is reasonable and can comprehend his part in the whole; naturally noble and free.read · scan
Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus AureliusVol. 2
- p. 234Man is not valued by vegetative or animal functions; worth lies in moving and restraining oneself by one's proper constitution.read · scan
- p. 244Man as rational animal: acting according to nature is acting according to reason; rational beings are members of one cooperative body.read · scan
Stories from the Thousand and One NightsVol. 16
- p. 29The fisherman reflects that as a man endowed with sound reason by God he can outwit a Jinni.read · scan
Dante Alighieri, HellVol. 20
- p. 106–110Ulysses exhorts his men that they were not made to live like brutes but to pursue virtue and knowledge.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of DenmarkVol. 46
- p. 174A man whose chief good is to sleep and feed is a beast; god-like reason was given to be used.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The TempestVol. 46
- p. 428–429Trinculo debates whether Caliban is man or fish, noting how people will pay to see a strange beast.read · scan
Thomas Hobbes, Of Man, Being the First Part of LeviathanVol. 34
- p. 321Only speech and method raise the mind of man above other living creatures.read · scan
- p. 329Speech, and hence understanding, is peculiar to man.read · scan
- p. 333–334Man excels other animals in inquiring consequences, and is uniquely liable to absurdity.read · scan
- p. 340–342Man is distinguished by reason and by the singular passion of curiosity.read · scan
- p. 376Man is distinguished by inquisitiveness about causes and anxiety over the future.read · scan
René Descartes, Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking the Truth in the SciencesVol. 34
- p. 5Reason alone constitutes us men and distinguishes us from brutes; it is complete in each individual.read · scan
- p. 38Man is a body like ours plus a Rational Soul; only thought distinguishes him from beasts.read · scan
- p. 42–44Human body is likened to a machine, and tests are proposed to distinguish real men from machines.read · scan
- p. 44Even the dullest men differ from the most perfect animals in capacity for language and reason.read · scan
Sir Thomas Browne, Religio MediciVol. 3
- p. 263The world was made to be studied by man; reason is the debt owed to God, and the homage for not being beasts.read · scan
John Milton, Paradise LostVol. 4
- p. 227Man is to be a creature of reason, upright, self-knowing, governing the rest and worshipping God.read · scan
- p. 261Reason and smiles distinguish humans from brutes; made for delight joined with reason.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 59Man is made to think; thought is his whole dignity, merit and duty, beginning with self, Author and end.read · scan
- p. 116–117Thought is essential to man; experience teaches which body parts are necessary.read · scan
- p. 117–118Thought constitutes the greatness of man; reason commands more imperiously than a master.read · scan
- p. 118Man is a thinking reed, feeblest in nature but nobler than the universe that kills him, because he knows he dies.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, Minor WorksVol. 48
- p. 441Man, formed for infinity, is ignorant at birth but learns ceaselessly; reason distinguishes him from beasts.read · scan
Daniel Defoe, The Education of WomenVol. 27
- p. 148–149Reason distinguishes us from brutes, and education carries the distinction further; women equally capable.read · scan
Jonathan Swift, Hints towards an Essay on ConversationVol. 27
- p. 97Human nature is debased by abusing speech, the faculty distinguishing men from brutes, and degenerates without refinement.read · scan
Alexander Pope, Solitude; On a Certain Lady at Court; Essay on ManVol. 40
- p. 422Man is the only thinking creature and lord who feeds on animals he cares for.read · scan
Thomas Gray, PoemsVol. 40
- p. 460–462Unlike animals living in the moment, man feels joy with forward and reverted eyes.read · scan
John Woolman, The Journal of John WoolmanVol. 1
- p. 274Man has wants beyond brutes and a capacity superior to theirs, with moderate labor suited to his condition.read · scan
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of NationsVol. 10
- p. 18The propensity to exchange is common to all men, perhaps from reason and speech, and found in no other animal.read · scan
- p. 20–21Men's natural sameness and disposition to exchange distinguish them from beasts.read · scan
Sir William Jones, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 579High-minded men excel brutes as beasts excel rocks.read · scan
Friedrich von Schiller, Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of ManVol. 32
- p. 262–263Man becomes human only with self-consciousness and reason; before that no human act can be expected.read · scan
Percy Bysshe Shelley, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 829–832Men look before and after and pine for what is not, unlike the bird.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, English TraitsVol. 5
- p. 354Digby holds man as man does nothing but weave chains of reasoning.read · scan
Robert Browning, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1103–1105Man is unlike the contented brute: a spark of soul disturbs his clod, making him nearer God, a God in the germ.read · scan
2b.Freedom, perfectibility and self-making
See also: Will 8c
Aesop, FablesVol. 17
- p. 35Hercules tells the waggoner that man must help himself by effort; human self-reliance rather than prayer.read · scan
Epictetus, The Golden Sayings of EpictetusVol. 2
- p. 149By nature man is free, noble, modest, capable of shame, with pleasure subordinate to nature's ends.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of MacbethVol. 46
- p. 335–336They dispute what makes a man: Macbeth says who dares more is none; she says daring the deed would make him more a man.read · scan
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse upon the Origin and the Foundation of the Inequality among MankindVol. 34
- p. 175Man's specific distinction is his quality as a free agent.read · scan
- p. 176Perfectibility separates man from beast; he can fall lower than beasts and become his own and nature's tyrant.read · scan
Friedrich von Schiller, Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of ManVol. 32
- p. 212Man is distinguished by not remaining where nature placed him, turning necessity into moral law.read · scan
- p. 212As a moral being man is not satisfied with a condition forced on him by necessity.read · scan
- p. 266–267Aesthetic culture restores man's freedom to make himself what he ought to be; the gift of humanity.read · scan
- p. 287–288Humanity begins when man prefers form to substance and leaves the barriers of animal life behind.read · scan
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, On Poesy or ArtVol. 27
- p. 258–259Man has reflection, freedom and choice, hence moral responsibility, and is head of visible creation.read · scan
William Ellery Channing, On the Elevation of the Laboring ClassesVol. 28
- p. 314Human growth and strength depend on struggle with difficulty; an easy world would make a contemptible race.read · scan
- p. 339Men were made to develop all their powers, especially the best; no man is all hands.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Man the ReformerVol. 5
- p. 53Man is born to be a reformer and remaker, imitating renewing Nature and returning practices to first thoughts.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, CompensationVol. 5
- p. 100The true, benevolent and wise man is more a man; his life is a progress, not a station.read · scan
- p. 101Individual men renew themselves and outgrow earlier selves; the heart and soul of all men are one.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, AutobiographyVol. 25
- p. 111–113Austin stressed the extraordinary pliability of human nature against political economists' universal principles, and unbounded moral capabilities.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, On LibertyVol. 25
- p. 214Corrigibility of errors is the quality of human mind from which everything respectable in man derives.read · scan
- p. 250–251Humboldt: the end of man is the highest, harmonious development of his powers into a complete whole.read · scan
- p. 252–253Human nature is a tree that grows from inward forces, not a machine; man himself is the first work to perfect.read · scan
- p. 254Character means desires and impulses that are one's own, cultivated; without them a person is like a steam-engine.read · scan
Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Two Years Before the MastVol. 23
- p. 199Contrasts a man shaped by what others gave him with one who made himself through mind and character.read · scan
2c.Man as possessing no preeminence over the beasts
The Book of JobVol. 44
- p. 87Man is born like a wild ass's colt.read · scan
- p. 97–98Bildad resents being counted as beasts.read · scan
Ecclesiastes; or, The PreacherVol. 44
- p. 338–339Man has no preeminence over beasts; both share one breath, come from dust, return to dust.read · scan
Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Life Is a DreamVol. 26
- p. 7Fife wonders whether wild beastlike men and cannibals live here; Rosaura sees a giant chained figure with a noble brow, not an ape's.read · scan
2d.Man who abandons reason becomes lower than a beast
The Book of PsalmsVol. 44
- p. 201Man in honor without understanding is likened to beasts that perish.read · scan
Plutarch, CiceroVol. 12
- p. 256–257Plutarch remarks that no beast is more savage than man with power.read · scan
Dante Alighieri, ParadiseVol. 20
- p. 301–304Men are urged to remember they are men, not senseless beasts, when enticed by lust.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of DenmarkVol. 46
- p. 174A man whose chief good is to sleep and feed is a beast; god-like reason was given to be used.read · scan
John Milton, Poems Written at Horton, 1632-1638Vol. 4
- p. 57The cup unmoulds reason's mintage in the face, fixing a beast's likeness.read · scan
William Penn, Some Fruits of SolitudeVol. 1
- p. 319–320Man alone can think, so thoughtless man falls below himself.read · scan
- p. 329–330The drunk is not a man, void of the reason that distinguishes man from beast.read · scan
- p. 362A man who feels and desires more than a beast yet lives no longer would be less than a beast.read · scan
William Penn, More Fruits of SolitudeVol. 1
- p. 385–386Beasts act by sense, man should by reason, else he is a greater beast than God made.read · scan
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse upon the Origin and the Foundation of the Inequality among MankindVol. 34
- p. 176Perfectibility separates man from beast; he can fall lower than beasts and become his own and nature's tyrant.read · scan
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Tragedy of Faust, Part IVol. 19
- p. 18–20Mephistopheles mocks man as a self-tormenting little world-god whose gift of reason makes him more brutish than beasts.read · scan
Friedrich von Schiller, Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of ManVol. 32
- p. 279–280Man ought to be neither animal without reason nor rational animal ruled by the physical; nature and reason should be independent yet complementary.read · scan
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 986Men are no better than sheep or goats if, knowing God, they do not pray.read · scan
William Makepeace Thackeray, Jonathan SwiftVol. 28
- p. 22Thackeray condemns Gulliver's fourth part as teaching that man is utterly wicked, imbecile and worthless, deserving to be slave of brutes.read · scan
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