Christopher

“he was always too much of a man to want to look like a man by imitating men. That is unmanly. A boy who wants to look like a man is not a manly boy, and men do not care for his company. A true boy is always welcome to a true man, but a would-be man is better on the other side of the wall.”
― George MacDonald, A Rough Shaking

“The thing most of them had in common was that a woman could argue she felt uncomfortable as a potential victim of masculinity. Yet feeling uncomfortable is not dangerous. “Feeling discomfort” is not hostile but in most cases, it is a positive challenge to the psyche, a method of self-appraisal, an invitation to civil argument, and a part of the maturation process of human beings.”
― Michael Gurian, Saving Our Sons: A New Path for Raising Healthy and Resilient Boys

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
― Mark Twain

“Protracted loneliness causes you to shut down socially, and to be more suspicious of any social contact, he found. You become hypervigilant. You start to be more likely to take offense where none was intended, and to be afraid of strangers. You start to be afraid of the very thing you need most. John calls this a “snowball” effect, as disconnection spirals into more disconnection. Lonely people are scanning for threats because they unconsciously know that nobody is looking out for them, so no one will help them if they are hurt. This snowball effect, he learned, can be reversed—but to help a depressed or severely anxious person out of it, they need more love, and more reassurance, than they would have needed in the first place. The tragedy, John realized, is that many depressed and anxious people receive less love, as they become harder to be around. Indeed, they receive judgment, and criticism, and this accelerates their retreat from the world. They snowball into an ever colder place.”
― Johann Hari, Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions