Quotes & Sayings About Eunuchs

Critics are eunuchs at a gang bang. — George Burns

It kills me to be time's eunuch and never to beget. — Gerard Manley Hopkins

In a world of spiritual eunuchs, it is good to find a man who is more than simply male. — Douglas Wilson

Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves. — Brendan Behan

The second lesson Pulcheria learned from her mother had to do with what kind of man one could trust. Fundamentally, any outstanding man at court who had sons of his own - or hope of having them - was a potential usurper. This is why eunuchs played such an important role in the imperial palace. But Christian priests and bishops constituted another class of men who - even if they did have children - had sworn themselves to a vocation in the Church. This meant that however much trouble they stirred up, they could not threaten the Emperor's person. Still, they had to be managed expertly. Eudoxia had discovered that bishops could be valuable allies and formidable enemies, and Pulcheria took this lesson to heart. — Kate Cooper

These are the three main diseases of this country, sir: typhoid, cholera, and election fever. This last one is the worst; it makes people talk and talk about things that they have no say in ... Would they do it this time? Would they beat the Great Socialist and win the elections? Had they raised enough money of their own, and bribed enough policemen, and bought enough fingerprints of their own, to win? Like eunuchs discussing the Kama Sutra, the voters discuss the elections in Laxmangarh. — Aravind Adiga

For many intelligences,the thought of homely intimacies is associated with a spontaneous disgust at too much sweetness-which is why there is neither a philosophy of sweetness nor an elaborated ontology of the intimate. One must assess the nature of this resistance if one is to get past typical initial aversions. From a distance,the subject appears so unattractive and inconsequential that for the time being,only suckers for harmony or theophilic eunuchs would get stuck on it. An intellect that spends its energy on worthy objects usually prefers the sharp to the sweet; one does not offer candy to heroes — Peter Sloterdijk

Neutrality may be useful, but it's useful like eunuchs are useful. Once you cut off their balls they grow big and strong, but you can never be sure if they will serve the harem or the master. — Vaughn Sherman

Critics are the eunuchs of literature. They stand by in envious awe while the whole man and his partner demonstrate the art of living. — John Steinbeck

His hand shone dully in its light. No good for throttling eunuchs, but heavy enough to smash that slimy smile into a fine red ruin. — George R R Martin

Clever is the eunuch version of funny. — George Meyer

God knows, people who are paid to have attitudes toward things, professional critics, make me sick; camp-following eunuchs of literature. — Ernest Hemingway,

In the name of a greater civilization, we curse those who for the sake of their ambitious dreams, brought about the massacre of so many young lives. No matter how brutal the crime, you will always get glorification of its heroism and tradition from the eunuchs of bourgeois culture. — Amadeo Bordiga

Critics are like eunuchs: they know how, but they can't do it. — Paul Bocuse

Human bipolarity was both the binding force and the driving energy for all human behavior, from sonnets to nuclear equations. If any being thinks that human psychologists exaggerate on this point, let it search Terran patent offices, libraries, and art galleries for creations of eunuchs. — Robert A. Heinlein

Yet I've come to learn that all our stories add up to the same imprisonment. The self-delusion of uniqueness. The festering pretense that we are the same as they are. The gutting of all our passions till we are a bunch of eunuchs, our zones of pleasure in enemy hands. Most of all, the ventriloquism, the learning how to pass for straight. Such obedient slaves we make, with such very tidy rooms. — Paul Monette

Oh, as far as unsexing is concerned, who are we to throw stones? With us any girl that cannot find a husband is unsexed. If she is very high or very low she may go her own way, with the risks entailed therein, but otherwise she must either have no sex or he disgraced. She burns, and she is ridiculed for burning. To say nothing of male tyranny - a wife or a daughter being a mere chattel in most codes of law or custom - and brute force - to say nothing to that, hundreds of thousands of girls are in effect unsexed every generation: and barren women are as much despised as eunuchs. I do assure you, Martin, that if I were a woman I should march out with a flaming torch and a sword; I should emasculate right and left. As for the women of the pahi, I am astonished at their moderation. — Patrick O'Brian

While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of eunuchs and bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with transport in every part of the empire, except in the palace of Constantius. — Edward Gibbon

Critics are like eunuchs; they can tell you what to do, but they can't do it themselves! — Harry Cohn

So what did Jes say?' I asked again, when my brain felt a bit less scrambled.
'He said I should take good care of you.'
'That's all?'
Mal cleared his throat. 'And ... he said he would pray to the God of Work to heal your affliction.'
'My what?'
'I many have told him that you have a goiter.'
I stumbled. 'I beg your pardon?'
'Well, I had to explain why you were always clinging to that scarf.'
I dropped my hand. I'd been doing it again without even realizing.
'So you told him I had a goiter?' I whispered incredulously.
'I had to say something. And it makes you quite a tragic figure. Pretty girl, giant growth, you know.'
I punched him hard in the arm.
'Ow! Hey, in some countries, goiters are considered very fashionable.'
'Do they like eunuchs, too? Because I can arrange that.'
'So bloodthirsty!'
'My goiter makes me cranky. — Leigh Bardugo

Because, my dear, in the spiritual life opposites meet. It's not the cold passionless ones who become great ascetics, but the most hot-blooded, people with something worth renouncing. That's why the church won't allow eunuchs to become priests. — Antal Szerb

Eunuchs do not take the gout, nor become bald. — Hippocrates

Judges have to be neutral, but they don't have to be eunuchs. — Jed S. Rakoff

A critic without a good eye is a eunuch in a harem. — Walter Darby Bannard

Robbers' Hill and its surrounding area were extremely safe for women.
In the last two decades, there had been no incident of molestation or rape in and around the village. People in the region both feared and respected Bhagatji.
There lived two eunuchs in the village. There was a fable in the village that years ago these eunuchs were men who had sexually assaulted a local woman. Bhagatji punished them. Since then they had been like this. — Ravi Ranjan Goswami

Being a writer in a library is rather like being a eunuch in a harem. — John Braine

Following his studies with Carrel, Voronoff worked in Egypt for the Egyptian king. Voronoff soon became fascinated with the eunuchs that were part of the king's harem. In particular, he noted that the castration they received seemed to increase the speed at which the eunuchs aged. This observation was the beginning of Voronoff's obsession with a surgical answer to aging. Likely inspired by the pioneering work of his mentor and the excitement of the new surgical techniques, Voronoff began to dabble in experimental transplantation. But he went beyond the techniques that his mentor had perfected. In early experiments Voronoff transplanted the testicles of a lamb into an old ram, claiming that the transplant served to thicken the ram's wool and increase its sex drive. These early studies foreshadowed the work that would follow. — Nathan Wolfe

Unlearned men of books assume the care,
As eunuchs are the guardians of the fair. — Edward Young

The German huts, open on every side to the eye of indiscretion or jealousy, were a better safeguard of conjugal fidelity than the walls, the bolts, and the eunuchs of a persian harem. To this reason, another may be added of a more honourable nature. The Germans treated their women with esteem and confidence, consulted them on every occasion of importance, and fondly believed that in their breasts resided a sanctity and wisdom more than human. — Edward Gibbon

I detest symbolic protest, as it is an outcry of weak, middle-of-the-road, liberal eunuchs. If an individual feels strongly enough about something to do something about it, then he shouldn't prostitute himself by doing something symbolic. He should get out and do something real. — William Powell

Think of it! A second chamber selected by the Whips. A seraglio of eunuchs. — Michael Foot

No foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord should say, "The Lord will exclude me from His people"; d and the eunuch should not say, "Look, I am a dried-up tree." e 4 For the Lord says this: "For the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths, and choose what pleases Me, and hold firmly to My covenant, 5 I will give them, in My house and within My walls, a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give each of them an everlasting name that will never be cut off. — Anonymous

Just as eunuchs will never know aesthetics as applied to the selection of beautiful women, so neither will pure rationalists ever know ethics, nor will they ever succeed in defining happiness, for happiness is a thing that is lived and felt, not a thing that is reasoned or defined. — Miguel

It's one of the biggest fibs going that American newspapers are now being forced to give up their commitment to investigative reporting. Most of them gave up long ago as their greedy managements squeezed every cent out of the bottom line and turned their newsrooms into eunuchs. — Tina Brown

Salmissra was alone and unguarded. The palace eunuchs were sworn to protect her, but evidently a eunuch's oath doesn't mean all that much to him if it's going to involve bleeding. — David Eddings

Pacuvius, who by long occupancy made Syria his own,8 used to hold a regular burial sacrifice in his own honour, with wine and the usual funeral feasting, and then would have himself carried from the dining-room to his chamber, while eunuchs applauded and sang in Greek to a musical accompaniment: He has lived his life, he has lived his life! — Seneca.

Black slaves seem to have cost from two to three hundred dirhams; black eunuchs, at least two or three times as much. Female black slaves were sold at five hundred dirhams or so; trained singing girls or other performers, at ten or even twenty thousand. — Bernard Lewis