The Art of Manliness Quotes

“So our definition of manliness, like that of the ancients, is simple: striving for virtue, honor, and excellence in all areas of your life, fulfilling your potential as a man, and being the absolute best brother, friend, husband, father and citizen you can be.”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues

“A man’s path to virtuous excellence begins with his pursuit of the seven manly virtues. These virtues, if diligently sought after and lived, will help a man unlock his fullest power and potential. The seven virtues are: Manliness Courage Industry Resolution Self-Reliance Discipline Honor These seven virtues can be striven for by any man, in any situation.”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues

“Courage does not consist in the absence of fear, but in the conquest of it.”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues

“There are two ways to define manhood. One way is to say that manhood is the opposite of womanhood. The other way is is to say that manhood is the opposite of childhood.”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness: Manvotionals

“Living in a very cynical age, we’re not used to such unabashed, guileless sincerity.”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues

“Wanted, a man “who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to heed a strong will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself.”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues

“Wanted, a man who is larger than his calling, who considers it a low estimate of his occupation to value it merely as a means of getting a living. Wanted, a man who sees self-development, education and culture, discipline and drill, character and manhood, in his occupation. Wanted, a man of courage who is not a coward in any part of his nature. Wanted, a man who is symmetrical, and not one-sided in his development, who has not sent all the energies of his being into one narrow specialty and allowed all the other branches of his life to wither and die. Wanted, a man who is broad, who does not take half views of things; a man who mixes common sense with his theories, who does not let a college education spoil him for practical, every-day life; a man who prefers substance to show, and one who regards his good name as a priceless treasure.”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues

“The first requisite of all education and discipline should be man-timber. Tough timber must come from well grown, sturdy trees. Such wood can be turned into a mast, can be fashioned into a piano or an exquisite carving. But it must become timber first. Time and patience develop the sapling into the tree. So through discipline, education, experience, the sapling child is developed into hardy mental, moral, physical man-timber. If the youth should start out with the fixed determination that every statement he makes shall be the exact truth; that every promise he makes shall be redeemed to the letter; that every appointment shall be kept with the strictest faithfulness and with full regard for other men’s time; if he should hold his reputation as a priceless treasure, feel that the eyes of the world are upon him, that he must not deviate a hair’s breadth from the truth and right; if he should take such a stand at the outset, he would … come to have almost unlimited credit and the confidence of everybody who knows him.”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues

“It is only the man who carries into his pursuits that great quality which Lucan ascribes to Caesar, Nescia virtus stare loco [his energy could never rest]—who first consults wisely, then resolves firmly, and then executes his purpose with inflexible perseverance, undismayed by those petty difficulties which daunt a weaker spirit—that can advance to eminence in any line.”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues

“If we desire to be good, we must first of all desire to be brave, that against all opposition, scorn, and danger we may move straight onward to do the right.”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues

“What are palaces and equipages; what though a man could cover a continent with his title-deeds, or an ocean with his commerce; compared with conscious rectitude, with a face that never turns pale at the accuser’s voice, with a bosom that never throbs with fear of exposure, with a heart that might be turned inside out and disclose no stain of dishonor? To have done no man a wrong; … to walk and live, unseduced, within arm’s length of what is not your own, with nothing between your desire and its gratification but the invisible law of rectitude—this is to be a man.”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues

“Of course what we have a right to expect of the American boy is that he shall turn out to be a good American man. Now, the chances are strong that he won’t be much of a man unless he is a good deal of a boy. He must not be a coward or a weakling, a bully, a shirk, or a prig. He must work hard and play hard. He must be clean-minded and clean-lived, and able to hold his own under all circumstances and against all comers. It is only on these conditions that he will grow into the kind of American man of whom America can be really proud.”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues

“If the youth should start out with the fixed determination that every statement he makes shall be the exact truth; that every promise he makes shall be redeemed to the letter; that every appointment shall be kept with the strictest faithfulness and with full regard for other men’s time; if he should hold his reputation as a priceless treasure, feel that the eyes of the world are upon him, that he must not deviate a hair’s breadth from the truth and right; if he should take such a stand at the outset, he would … come to have almost unlimited credit and the confidence of everybody who knows him.”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues

“The enemy who slinks and plots and conceals—makes traps and ambuscades, seeks to lead his opponent into dangers which he himself would never dare to face—is despicable, serpentine, and contemptible. But he who stands up boldly against his antagonist in any conflict, physical, social, or spiritual, and deals fair blows, and uses honest arguments, and faces the issues of warfare, is a man to love even across the chasm of strife … A brave, frank, manly foe is infinitely better than a false, weak, timorous friend. In”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues

“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.” —L.P. Jacks”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues

“How sweet and clear and steady is the life into which this virtue enters day by day, not merely in those great flashes of excitement which come in the moments of crisis, but in the presence of the hourly perils, the continual conflicts. Not to tremble at the shadows which surround us, not to shrink from the foes who threaten us, not to hesitate and falter and stand despairing still among the perplexities and trials of our life, but to move steadily onward without fear,”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues

“How could he have been an eagle and not have pride? His contention was that it was finer for a finite mortal speck of life to feel Godlike, than for a god to feel godlike; and so it was that he exalted what he deemed his mortality.”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues

“does not admit the possibility of defeat.”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues

“The successful man knows but little of regrets, cares but little for past failures, and broods but little over the blunders he has made. And he could not be successful if he did.”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues

“To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness, But life without meaning is the torture Of restlessness and vague desire— It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.”
― Brett McKay, The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues