Mortal Man Quotes & Sayings

It maketh God man, and man God; things temporal, eternal; mortal, immortal; it maketh an enemy a friend, a servant a son, vile things glorious, cold hearts fiery, and hard thing liquid. — Bonaventure

I have heard of that idea. I also met certain Rastafarians. I told them clearly that I am a man, that I am mortal and that they should never make a mistake in assuming or pretending that a human being is emanated from a deity. — Haile Selassie

Man is mortal. Everyone has to die some day or the other. But one must resolve to lay down one's life in enriching the noble ideals of self-respect and in bettering one's human life. We are not slaves. Nothing is more disgraceful for a brave man than to live life devoid of self-respect. — B.R. Ambedkar

After the 1960s and '70s, there were real doubts about whether a mortal man could handle the country's highest office. It had destroyed Johnson, corrupted Nixon, and overwhelmed Ford and Carter. — Nancy Gibbs

Man is only a forgetful mortal, but God - He sees, hears and remembers everything. — Suzy Kassem

Calling on his inherent magic, he pictured a shape less conspicuous in the mortal realm. An instant later he stood before his companion in his new body and found himself surprisingly comfortable in the denim and cotton garments that came with it. Perhaps this confining human shape had its advantages.
He nodded in satisfaction and looked to the woman, "Will this do?"
***
Will this do me? Now that is the question.
Wynn took in the Guardian's human form and hoped her eyes were not literally bulging out of her head, because they sure as heck felt like they were. It felt as if the usually obedient organs couldn't take in enough of the new view in their natural state and wanted to reach out and touch the gorgeous specimen of man that now stood before her.
Because ... wow. — Christine Warren

Lehi, in counseling his son Jacob, makes a very challenging statement: "All things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things." (2 Ne. 2:24.) If I interpret this statement correctly, it means that one's wisdom is proportionate to his knowledge. This being so, how insignificant is the wisdom of man, which is based upon his limited mortal experience, when compared with the wisdom of God, which is based upon his knowledge of all things. — Marion G. Romney

There is a way of losing that is finding. When soul overmasters sense. When the noble and divine self overcomes the lower self. When duty and honor and love immortal things bid the mortal perish. It is only when a man supremely gives that he supremely finds — Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

THE SHADOWS Table of Contents Old Ralph Rinkelmann made his living by comic sketches, and all but lost it again by tragic poems. So he was just the man to be chosen king of the fairies, for in Fairyland the sovereignty is elective. It is no doubt very strange that fairies should desire to have a mortal king; but the fact is, that with all their knowledge and power, they cannot get rid of the feeling that some men are greater than they are, though they can neither fly nor play tricks. So at such times as there happens to be twice the usual number of sensible electors, such a man as Ralph Rinkelmann gets to be chosen. They — George MacDonald

Abel was also the first of the human family to experience physical death- and it was through murder! He suffered death because of another's sin, the transgression of his elder brother Cain, who, in a fit of rage, killed him in cold blood. At the same time, thanks to faith in the sin-offering, he overcame death. The first man to descend into the Valley of the Shadow of Death was the first one to triumphantly march straight through it into the Paradise of Glory. He stepped from the excruciating pain of mortal manslaughter's hate into the exquisite land of eternal delights prepared by the Father's love! He led the way, like a pioneer, for all subsequent generations of men and women of faith throughout human history. — Robert L. Sumner

That mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true - not true, or undeveloped. With books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe. "All is vanity." ALL. This wilful world hath not got hold of unchristian Solomon's wisdom yet. — Herman Melville

Nevertheless the sun hides not Virginia's Dismal Swamp, nor Rome's accursed Campagna, nor wide Sahara, nor all the million miles of deserts and of griefs beneath the moon. The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true
not true, or undeveloped. — Herman Melville

It is the will of God and Nature that these mortal bodies be laid aside, when the soul is to enter into real life; 'tis rather an embrio state, a preparation for living; a man is not completely born until he be dead: Why then should we grieve that a new child is born among the immortals? — Benjamin Franklin

Young man,
two are the forces most precious to mankind.
The first is Demeter, the Goddess.
She is the Earth
or any name you wish to call her
and she sustains humanity with solid food.
Next came Dionysus, the son of the virgin,
bringing the counterpart to bread: wine
and the blessings of life's flowing juices.
His blood, the blood of the grape,
lightens the burden of our mortal misery.
Though himself a God, it is his blood we pour out
to offer thanks to the Gods. And through him, we are blessed. — Euripides

For the whole earth is a point, and how small a nook in it is this thy dwelling, and how few are there in it, and what kind of people are they who will praise thee. This then remains: Remember to retire into this little territory of thy own, and above all do not distract or strain thyself, but be free, and look at things as a man, as a human being, as a citizen, as a mortal. — Marcus Aurelius

Over the entrance to the temple at Delphi was a famous inscription: KNOW THYSELF! It reminded visitors that man must never believe himself to be more than mortal - and that no man can escape his destiny. — Jostein Gaarder

Every man beholds his human condition with a degree of melancholy. As a ship aground is battered by the waves, so man, imprisonedin mortal life, lies open to the mercy of coming events. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

If a man does not go about his work with enthusiasm, it means that he has not yet found a work that he likes. Every mortal is a busy bee when he comes to the task that Destiny has set aside for him. — George Ade

Each soul has its appointed doom. How is it you dare to raise a mortal boy so high - high enough to flout the gods? Bring godhead where a man may reach out and take it? growls Enlil, and lightning splits a clear blue sky. — Janet Morris

How was it that a man could not walk onto his own property, visit the grave of his wife, eat the fruits of forty generations of his ancestors' toil, without mortal consequence? — Susan Abulhawa

Only a woman can carry in her body an eternal being which bears the very image of God. Only she is the recipient of the miracle of life. Only a woman can conceive and nurture this life using her own flesh and blood, and then deliver a living soul into the world. God has bestowed upon her alone a genuine miracle - the creation of life, and the fusing of an eternal soul with mortal flesh. This fact alone establishes the glory of motherhood.
Despite the most creative plans of humanist scientists and lawmakers to redefine the sexes, no man will ever conceive and give birth to a child. The fruitful womb is a holy gift given by God to women alone. This is one reason why the office of wife and mother is the highest calling to which a woman can aspire.
This is the reason why nations that fear the Lord esteem and protect mothers. They glory in the distinctions between men and women, and attempt to build cultures in which motherhood is honored and protected. — Douglas W. Phillips

Have you thought about what it means to be a god?" asked the man. He had a beard and a baseball cap. "It means you give up your mortal existence to become a meme: something that lives forever in people's minds, like the tune of a nursery rhyme. It means that everyone gets to re-create you in their own minds. You barely have your own identity any more. Instead, you're a thousand aspects of what people need you to be. And everyone wants something different from you. Nothing is fixed, nothing is stable. — Neil Gaiman

I grow aware of various forms of man and of myself. I am form and I am formless, I am life and I am matter, mortal and immortal. I am one and many
myself and humanity in flux. — Charles Lindbergh

THERE IS A LOVELY LITTLE horror story about the peasant who started through the haunted wood - the wood that was, people said, inhabited by devils who took any mortal who came their way. But the peasant thought, as he walked slowly along:
I am a good man and have done no wrong. If devils can harm me, then there isn't any justice.
A voice behind him said, There isn't. — Fredric Brown

You're a Dark-Hunter."
He kissed her lightly on the lips. "What I am is a man in love with a woman. I want you, Amanda. For the rest of my blessedly short mortal life. I want to wake at dawn with you in my arms and watch our children play and fight. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

A Greek philosopher said, 'All men think it is only the other man who is mortal'. The way we scurry about accumulating things is testimony to our unspoken doctrine that we are exceptions to the law of death. The events of September 11, 2001, were a shocking reminder to millions of Americans of something we should have already understood - our mortality. — Randy Alcorn

The Triumph Of Achilles

In the story of Patroclus
no one survives, not even Achilles
who was nearly a god.
Patroclus resembled him; they wore
the same armor.

Always in these friendships
one serves the other, one is less than the other:
the hierarchy
is always apparent, though the legends
cannot be trusted--
their source is the survivor,
the one who has been abandoned.

What were the Greek ships on fire
compared to this loss?

In his tent, Achilles
grieved with his whole being
and the gods saw
he was a man already dead, a victim
of the part that loved,
the part that was mortal. — Louise Gluck

Agreements. Specifically, a treaty ratified by all the orders of whimsical like forms who dwell here that affords a measure of security for mortal caretakers. In a world where mortal man has become the dominant force, most creatures of enchantment have fled to refuges like this one. — Brandon Mull

And there is no question that we are preoccupied by dying. But why? It is because when we die, we leave behind not only the world but also death. That is the paradox of the last hour. Death works with us in the world; it is a power that humanizes nature, that raises existence to being, and it is within each one of us as our most human quality; it is death only in the world - man only knows death because he is man, and he is only man because he is death in the process of becoming. But to die is to shatter the world; it is the loss of person, the annihilation of the being; and so it is also the loss of death, the loss of what in it and for me made it death. As long as I live, I am a mortal man, but when I die, by ceasing to be man I also cease to be mortal, I am no longer capable of dying, and my impending death horrifies me because I see it as it is: no longer death, but the impossibility of dying. — Maurice Blanchot

What greater dignity can be put upon a mortal man, than to converse with his Maker, and to walk with God every day? — Thomas Watson

What lay at the bottom of their savagery, of course, was their idiotic belief in Calvinism - beyond question the most brutal and barbaric theology ever subscribed to by mortal man, whether in or out of the African bush. — H.L. Mencken

Never was it given to mortal man - To lie so boldly as we women can. — Alexander Pope

Ivan Iylich saw that he was dying, and was in continual despair.
At the bottom of his heart Ivan Ilyich knew that he was dying; but so far from growing used to the idea, he simply did not grasp it - he was utterly unable to grasp it.
The example of the syllogism that he had learned in Kiseveter's logic - Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal - had seemed to him all his life correct only as regards Caius, but not at all regards himself. In that case it was a question of Caius, a man, an abstract man, and it was perfectly true, but he was not Caius, and was not an abstract man; he had always been a creature quite, quite different from all the others. — Leo Tolstoy

I envy the delusion to which you are a victim. You go forth with joy to gather flowers for your princess, - in winter, - and grieve when you can find none, and cannot understand why they do not grow. But I wander forth without joy, without hope, without design; and I return as I came. You fancy what a man you would be if the states general paid you. Happy mortal, who can ascribe your wretchedness to an earthly cause! You do not know, you do not feel, that in your own distracted heart
and disordered brain dwells the source of that unhappiness which all the potentates on earth cannot relieve. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The man forget not, though in rags he lies, and know the mortal through a crown's disguise. — Mark Akenside

But when Odysseus rose, that man of many devices, fixing his down-cast eyes on the ground he stood: nor his scepter swayed, either this way or that like a practiced speaker, but held it motionless, even as a man unskilled in the arts of persuasion. One would declare him mute with passion or wanting in judgment. But when he spoke, when his powerful voice went forth from his bosom, issuing words which fell like flakes of snow in winter, surely no mortal man might hope to compete with Odysseus. Lost in wonder we sat, but not, as before, at his manner. — Homer

For immediately in the beginning, after his original life of blessedness, the first man despised the command of God, and fell into this mortal and perishable state, and exchanged his former divinely inspired luxury for this curse-laden earth. His descendants having filled our earth, showed themselves much worse, with the exception of one here and there, and entered upon a certain brutal and insupportable mode of life. — Eusebius

No divine terror will ever be found in the work of the man who wastes a colossal strength in elaborating toys; for the first lesson that terror is sent to teach us is, the value of the human soul, and the shortness of mortal time. — John Ruskin

Secret of man's Mortality; Man has transformed from immortal to become a mere mortal being all because of our mental love for sex and evil. — Auliq Ice

All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness; and though he had seen many spectres in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely pre-ambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils; and he would have passed a pleasent life of it, in despite of the devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was - a woman. — Washington Irving

Every trial that ever burdened a mortal man, every temptation that ever stormed a human heart, and every blessing that ever delighted a needy soul have been skillfully designed by the Creator for one purpose: to draw men to Himself. — Jim Berg

It was darkly rumoured that the butler, regarding him with favour such as that stern man had never shown before to mortal boy, had sometimes mingled porter with his table beer to make him strong. — Charles Dickens

Sometimes, but only for a moment, I saw a faint solitary
figure with a Rosa veiled face, and carrying a faint torch, flit among the dancers, but like a dream within a
dream, like a shadow of a shadow, and I knew by an understanding born from a deeper fountain than thought,
that it was Eros himself, and that his face was veiled because no man or woman from the beginning of the
world has ever known what love is, or looked into his eyes, for Eros alone of divinities is altogether a spirit,
and hides in passions not of his essence if he would commune with a mortal heart. So that if a man love nobly
he knows love through infinite pity, unspeakable trust, unending sympathy; and if ignobly through vehement
jealousy, sudden hatred, and unappeasable desire; but unveiled love he never knows. — W.B.Yeats

Thus it was up to God, to Him alone
in His own ways - by one or both, I say -
to give man back his whole life and perfection.
But since a deed done is more prized the more
it manifests within itself the mark
of the loving heart and goodness of the doer,
the Everlasting Love, whose seal is plain
on all the wax of the world was pleased to move
in all His ways to raise you up again.
There was not, nor will be, from the first day
to the last night, an act so glorious
and so magnificent, on either way.
For God, in giving Himself that man might be
able to raise himself, gave even more
than if he had forgiven him in mercy.
All other means would have been short, I say,
of perfect justice, but that God's own Son
humbled Himself to take on mortal clay.
-Paradiso, Canto VII — Dante Alighieri

What is there astonishing in the death of a mortal? But we are grieved at his dying before his time. Are we sure that this was not his time? We do not know how to pick and choose what is good for our souls, or how to fix the limits of the life of man. — Saint Basil

Whatever is preached to us, and whatever we learn, we should still remember that it is man that gives, and man that receives; it is a mortal hand that presents it to us, it is a mortal hand that accepts it. — Michel De Montaigne

The immediate occasion of this practice was the lowness of wages, which at that time would not allow them to indulge in ale or spirits, and wages rising, it may be thought that this practice would cease; but as I do not readily believe that any man having once tasted the divine luxuries of opium will afterwards descend to the gross and mortal enjoyments of alcohol, I take it for granted,
That those eat now who never ate before;
And those who always ate, now eat the more. — Thomas De Quincey

Mormon prophets have continuously taught the sublime truth that God the Eternal Father was once a mortal man who passed through a school of earth life similar that through which we are now passing. He became God - an exalted being - through obedience to the same eternal Gospel truths that we are given opportunity today to obey. — Milton R. Hunter

Though we call God our Father, own Him to be the disposer of all things, and that His word is truth; yet we will not give Him that trust which we give to mortal unfaithful man. — Howell Harris

Man is mortal. This is his fate. Man pretends not to be mortal. That is his sin. Man is a creature of time and place, whose perspectives and insights are invariably conditioned by his immediate circumstances. — Sylvan Barnet

Out of love for His Father and for us, He allowed Himself to suffer beyond the capacity of mortal man. He told us some of what that infinite sacrifice required of Him. — Henry B. Eyring

He is our Father - the Father of our Spirits, and was once a man in mortal flesh as we are, and is now an exalted being. — Brigham Young

CHORUS:
You that live in my ancestral Thebes, behold this Oedipus,- him who knew the famous riddles and was a man most masterful; not a citizen who did not look with envy on his lot- see him now and see the breakers of misfortune swallow him!
Look upon that last day always. Count no mortal happy till he has passed the final limit of his life secure from pain. — Sophocles

Unhappy: People look around and think, why are there so many people that are unhappy? We have progressed so far, yet people are still unhappy. Why isn't this world the wonderful place it could be? Changing the world doesn't change us.

It does not matter how much we progress materially; it will not change anything. Only learning and seeing the truth will change us, and thus change everything.

The truth transforms a mortal man into an immortal spiritual being.
It does this because the truth just shows you what you truly are, and that changes everything. The truth does the same thing for the way we see the world and for the same reason. It shows you life clearly; it shows you true life for the first time. — Michael Smith

A precept or command is a general teaching of God, obligating every man under pain of mortal sin - namely, in cases in which he has fallen away from the command. Hence, the saints who for a period of their life lived hypocritically sinned mortally for that period. So also the damned, by persistent false living, sin persistently in Hell. — Jan Hus

She wanted to know what American writers I liked. "Hawthorne, Henry James, Emily Dickinson ... " "No, living." Ah, well, hmm, let's see: how difficult, the rival factor being what it is, for a contemporary author, or would-be author, to confess admiration for another. At last I said, "Not Hemingway - a really dishonest man, the closet-everything. Not Thomas Wolfe - all that purple upchuck; of course, he isn't living. Faulkner, sometimes: Light in August. Fitzgerald, sometimes: Diamond as Big as the Ritz, Tender Is the Night. I really like Willa Cather. Have you read My Mortal Enemy?" With no particular expression, she said, "Actually, I wrote it. — Truman Capote

I would rather be an independent senator, governed by my own views, going for the good of the country, uncontrolled by any thing which mortal man can bring to bear upon me, than to be president of the United States, put there as presidents of the United States have been for many years past. — John C. Calhoun

I remembered Nahadoth's lips on my throat and fought to suppress a shudder, only half succeeding. Death as a consequence of lying with a god wasn't something I had considered, but it did not surprise me. A mortal man's strength had its limits. He spent himself and slept. He could be a good lover, but even his best skills were only guesswork - for every caress that sent a woman's head into the clouds, he might try ten that brought her back to earth. — N.K. Jemisin

Oh, where is man That mortal god, that hath no mortal kin Or like on earth? Shall Nature's orator The interpreter of all her mystic strains Shall he be mute in Nature's jubilee? — Hartley Coleridge

Rising above the squadrons, so he was visible to all, he raised his arm and his sword. "This is our land," he said, augmenting his voice so it'd reach every man and woman, mortal and immortal, who'd fight this day. "We will not be intimidated, and we will not surrender. We did not begin this war, but we will end it!" A roar shook the world, arms and voices raised in solidarity. — Nalini Singh

Herlia, goddess of justice, weeping as she passes her first judgement (...) She fell in love with a mortal man, but his passion for her drove him to commit a terrible crime and so she judged him, consigning him to the depths of the earth, chained to a rock, where his flesh is eternally eaten by vermin (...) Indeed, he stole a magic sword and with it slew a god, thinking him a rival for her affections. In fact he was her brother, Ixtus, god of dreams. now, whenever we suffer nightmares it is the shade of the fallen god taking his revenge on mortal kind. — Anthony Ryan

To see a man fearless in dangers, untainted with lusts, happy in adversity, composed in a tumult, and laughing at all those things which are generally either coveted or feared, all men must acknowledge that this can be from nothing else but a beam of divinity that influences a mortal body. — Seneca The Younger

Epic sex?" I sputtered. "By what standards, precisely, is sex judged to be epic?"
"And tons and tons of mortal simps like you used as pawns." Bob sighed happily, ignoring my question. "There are no words. It was like the Lord of the Rings and All My Children made a baby with the Macho Man Randy Savage and a Whac-A-Mole machine. — Jim Butcher

I love you,' Marius whispered suddenly, passionately as a mortal man might. 'I have always loved you. I wish that I could believe in anything other than love at this moment; but I can't. — Anne Rice

Pale hair fell in waves to his shoulders, framing a face mortal females considered a sensual feast. They didn't know the man was actually a devil in angel's skin. They should have, though. He practically glowed with irreverence, and there was an unholy gleam in his green eyes that proclaimed he would laugh in your face while cutting out your heat. Or laugh in your face while you cut out his heart. — Gena Showalter

God, why does a mortal man have children? It is senseless to love anything this much. — Barbara Kingsolver

The Bible presents God as above, beyond, and outside the experiences of mortal man. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and His ways are past finding out. God cannot be known by human intellect or reason, except through the new birth. Belief in God is not the product of seeing and knowing, but seeing and knowing are the products of believing.
Truth is revealed by God through the Scriptures-the Holy Bible. Truth is what the Bible declares, and not what the masses believe or what is the consensus. Reason, science, experience have nothing to do with truth. The test of truth is "thus saith the Lord. — Roger McIntyre

The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true
not true, or undeveloped. With books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe. — Herman Melville

He who thinks we are to pitch our tent here, and have attained the utmost prospect of reformation that the mortal glass wherein we contemplate can show us, till we come to beatific vision, that man by this very opinion declares that he is yet far short of truth. — John Milton

When you see a condemned man on his way to the gallows, it moves you to pity. If you could do something to free him, you would do it. Well, brothers and sisters, when I see a person in mortal sin, I see someone drawing nearer with every step to the gallows of hell. And seeing him in this unhappy state, I happen to know the way to free him: that he be converted to God, ask God's pardon, and make a good confession. Woe betide me if he does not. — Anthony Mary Claret

The Devil can so completely assume the human form, when he wants to deceive us, that we may well lie with what seems to be a woman, of real flesh and blood, and yet all the while 'tis only the Devil in the shape of a woman. 'Tis the same with women, who may think that a man is in bed with them, yet 'tis only the Devil; and ... the result of this connection is oftentimes an imp of darkness, half mortal, half devil ... — Martin Luther

On the day when it will be possible for woman to love not in her weakness but in her strength, not to escape herself but to find herself, not to abase herself but to assert herself
on that day love will become for her, as for man, a source of life and not of mortal danger. — Simone De Beauvoir

You are not to take it, if you please, as the saying of an ignorant man, when I express my opinion that such a book as ROBINSON CRUSOE never was written, and never will be written again. I have tried that book for years - generally in combination with a pipe of tobacco - and I have found it my friend in need in all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are bad - ROBINSON CRUSOE. When I want advice - ROBINSON CRUSOE. In past times when my wife plagued me; in present times when I have had a drop too much - ROBINSON CRUSOE. I have worn out six stout ROBINSON CRUSOES with hard work in my service. On my lady's last birthday she gave me a seventh. I took a drop too much on the strength of it; and ROBINSON CRUSOE put me right again. Price four shillings and sixpence, bound in blue, with a picture into the bargain.
— Wilkie Collins

When that slow-motion, silent explosion of love takes place in me, unfolding its melting fringes and overwhelming me with the sense of something much vaster, much more enduring and powerful than the accumulation of matter or energy in any imaginable cosmos, then my mind cannot but pinch itself to see if it is really awake. I have to make a rapid inventory of the universe, just as a man in a dream tries to condone the absurdity of his position by making sure he is dreaming. I have to have all space and all time participate in my emotion, in my mortal love, so that the edge of its mortality is taken off, thus helping me to fight the utter degradation, ridicule, and horror of having developed an infinity of sensation and thought within a finite existence. — Vladimir Nabokov

Even the eternal skies weep, I thought; is there any shame then, that mortal man should spend himself in tears? — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

As Herman Melville wrote of that seagoing monster of a man Captain Ahab, "All mortal greatness is but disease. — Nathaniel Philbrick

In this night too, in this night of his mortal eyes into which he was now descending, love and danger were again waiting ...
a murmur of glory and hexameters, of men defending a temple the gods will not save, and of black vessels searching the sea for a beloved isle;
the murmor of the Odysseys and Iliads it was his destiny to sing and leave echoing concavely in the memory of man.
These things we know, but not those he felt descending into the last shade of all. — Jorge Luis Borges

Accustom yourself to the belief that death is of no concern to us, since all good and evil lie in sensation and sensation ends with death. Therefore the true belief that death is nothing to us makes a mortal life happy, not by adding to it an infinite time, but by taking away the desire for immortality. For there is no reason why the man who is thoroughly assured that there is nothing to fear in death should find anything to fear in life. So, too, he is foolish who says that he fears death, not because it will be painful when it comes, but because the anticipation of it is painful; for that which is no burden when it is present gives pain to no purpose when it is anticipated. Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist. It is therefore nothing either to the living or to the dead since it is not present to the living, and the dead no longer are. — Epicurus

I am Athena. Before that I was Thea, singer and slave and lover of gladiators. Before that I was Leah, daughter of Benjamin and Rachael of Masada. I am as mortal as you, you common little man. And I fear no one! — Kate Quinn

Do you understand, mortal?" Eanrin said. "We Faerie know it's the spirit that counts, and all else is malleable. Beauty or ugliness; brawn or frailty; height or lack thereof
these appearances can be exchanged with scarcely a thought! But the truth ... now, that's another issue. The truth of the thing, the person behind what you perceive with any of your paltry five senses ... Creature of dust, it's the truth that counts! And you'll rarely find more truth than in Faerie tales."
With those words, the golden man dwindled into the golden cat, and try as he might, the Chronicler could perceive him as nothing else. But he was still Eanrin, and he smiled, pleased with himself.
"That wasn't a half-bad monologue. Do you find yourself inspired to new heights of ambition? — Anne Elisabeth Stengl

The fantastically wasteful prodigality of human tongues, the Babel enigman, points to a vital multiplication of mortal liberties. Each language speaks the world in its own ways. Each edifies worlds and counter-worlds in its own mode. The polyglot is a freer man. — George Steiner

Animus is the soul in woman just as anima is the soul in man. Animus usually personifies himself as a masculine force and appears in women's dreams as a masculine figure. Women relate to their animus side differently than men relate to anima, but there is one thing that men and women have in common: Romantic love always consists in the projection of the soul-image. When a woman falls in love it is animus that she sees projected onto the mortal man before her. When a man drinks of the love potion, it is anima, his soul, that he sees superimposed on a woman. — Robert A. Johnson

Be your own master, and look at things as a man, as a human being, as a citizen, as a mortal creature. — Marcus Aurelius

Plato spoke of the Sisters of Fate on the last 3 pages of his book, "The Republic" when he said: "Then the Sisters of Fate take all of our choices and weave them on their loom into the fabric of destiny. Hear the word of Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity. Mortal souls, behold a new cycle of life and mortality. Your genius will not be allotted to you, but you will choose your genius; and let him who draws the first lot have the first choice, and the life which he chooses shall be his destiny. Virtue is free, and as a man honors' or dishonors her he will have more or less of her; the responsibility is with the chooser - God is justified" [Quote from Plato's Republic written 360BCE In the Public Domain] — D.M. Hoover

With the best equipment in the world the man with poor judgment is in mortal danger. — Royal Robbins

Surely mortal man is a broomstick! — Jonathan Swift

For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe
the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God. — John F. Kennedy

I hope to be judged as good a man as my father. Before I hear those words "well done" from my Heavenly Father, I hope to first hear them from my mortal father. — Boyd K. Packer

If this was the world as the god-or gods-had made it, then mortal man, this mortal man, could acknowledge that and honour the power and infinite majesty that lay within it, but he would not say it was right, or bow down as if he were only dust or a brittle leaf blown from and autumn tree, helpless in the wind. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Far away on the path we saw Sir Henry looking back, his face white in the moonlight, his hands raised in horror, glaring helplessly at the frightful thing which was hunting him down. But that cry of pain from the hound had blown all our fears to the winds. If he was vulnerable he was mortal, and if we could wound him we could kill him. Never have I seen a man run as Holmes ran that night. — Arthur Conan Doyle

God knows, when spring comes to Paris the humbles mortal alive must feel that he dwells in paradise ... it [is] the the intimacy with which his eye rests upon the scene. It [is] his Paris. A man does not need to be rich, nor even a citizen, to feel this way about Paris. Paris is filled with poor people - the proudest and filthiest lot of beggars that ever walked the earth ... And yet they give the illusion of being at home. It is that which distinguishes the Parisian from all other metropolitan souls.
When I think of New York I have a very different feeling. New York makes even a rich man feel his unimportance. New York is cold, glisttering, malign. The buildings dominate. There is a sort of atomic frenzy to the activity going on; the more furious the pace, the more diminished the spirit ... Nobody knows what it's all about. Nobody directs the energy. Stupendous. Bizarre. Baffling. A tremendous reactive urge, but absolutely uncoordinated. — Henry Miller

A king is a mortal god on earth, unto whom the living God hath lent his own name as a great honour; but withal told him, he should die like a man, lest he should be proud, and flatter himself that God hath with his name imparted unto him his nature also. — John Locke

He spent two decades wandering the wilderness, overmedicated, set upon by the tax man, divorce lawyers, everything but a rain of toads. There were more fights and pills and liquor and car crashes and women and discharge of firearms - accidental and on purpose - than a mortal man could be expected to survive, but he played. — Rick Bragg

Hence it is written (Wis. 9:14): "The thoughts of mortal men are fearful, and our counsels uncertain." Thus man needs to be guarded by the angels. Reply — Thomas Aquinas

Love, unconquerable, Waster of rich men, keeper Of warm lights and all-night vigil In the soft face of a girl: Sea-wanderer, forest-visitor! Even the pure immortals cannot escape you, And mortal man, in his one day's dusk, Trembles before your glory. — Sophocles

As for myself, I can only exhort you to look on Friendship as the most valuable of all human possessions, no other being equally suited to the moral nature of man, or so applicable to every state and circumstance, whether of prosperity or adversity, in which he can possibly be placed. But at the same time I lay it down as a fundamental axiom that "true Friendship can only subsist between those who are animated by the strictest principles of honour and virtue." When I say this, I would not be thought to adopt the sentiments of those speculative moralists who pretend that no man can justly be deemed virtuous who is not arrived at that state of absolute perfection which constitutes, according to their ideas, the character of genuine wisdom. This opinion may appear true, perhaps, in theory, but is altogether inapplicable to any useful purpose of society, as it supposes a degree of virtue to which no mortal was ever capable of rising. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

The joining together of a man and a woman to be legally and lawfully wed not only is preparation for future generations to inherit the earth, but it also brings the greatest joy and satisfaction that can be found in this mortal experience. — L. Tom Perry

Dying on your own terms, this is the greatest gift anyone can bestow upon a mortal man. — Mario Stinger

We have been told mankind will be judged on the intent of the heart. No mortal can see into the depth of another. There is only One who can. His is the role of a judge-not ours. If you are prone to criticize or judge, remember, we never see the target a man aims at in life. We see only what he hits. — H. Burke Peterson

When a mortal man breaks a people, it is always blamed on the gods. — S.M. White