personal development on Masculinity

The following story by professor and author A. J. Swoboda is a vivid example of how shame works in our lives, often causing us to hide and run away from the pain and embarrassment: One of the greate...

Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities he does not possess.

What a boy can use, and too often doesn't have, are the heart of his father and the fellowship of men. A boy needs at least one man who pays attention to him, spends time with him, and admires him...

Men are more accountable for their motives, than for anything else; and primarily, morality consists in the motives, that is in the affections.

Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intellige...

The strength of a man’s virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Men (and woman) are undoubtedly more in danger from prosperity than from adversity. for when matters go smoothly, they flatter themselves, and are intoxicated by their success.

I’d grown up in a Boston suburb where people’s homes were set behind deep hedges or protected by huge yards and neighbors hardly knew each other. And they didn’t need to: nothing ever happened in my t...

Man is a metaphysical being, an animal that nourishes its life on transcendence.

Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test.

It is easier to find a score of men wise enough to discover the truth than to find one intrepid enough, in the face of opposition, to stand up for it.

The skills have been lost of being present for and in another, and what remains is mistrust and violence.

All men by nature desire knowledge.

Resolved: that all men should live for the glory of God. Resolved second: that whether others do or not, I will.

Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.

Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory. He is the gre...

Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable.

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.

If you were to travel back in time to the city of Rome (either during the Republic or the Empire), you may have had the opportunity to witness the Triumph, a colossal spectacle in which the greatest m...

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

Man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.

The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.

But to find a man who in plain terms and without guile speaks his mind with frankness... is not easy, but rather the good fortune of every great city, so great is the dearth of noble, independent soul...

Maturity is the ability to think, speak and act your feelings within the bounds of dignity. The measure of your maturity is how spiritual you become during the midst of your frustrations.

Nothing so conclusively proves a man’s ability to lead others, as what he does from day to day to lead himself.

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.

We need to rescue “desire” from attempts to reduce its meaning to sexual libido and its increasingly murky associations with sexual abuse or sexual power games.

We must constantly build dykes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.