Masculine

“ With something of wonder, too, was I inspired to see so young a man lead a life so perfectly balanced, so exquisitely sensitive to every fine masculine influence. Possessing to an unusual degree that rare temperament which we call culture, he entered joyously into all that life offered to him, impatient only of hypocrisy and what he called “the copiously pious.” ”

“ But the intellect, cold, is ever more masculine than feminine; warmed by emotion, it rushes toward mother-earth, and puts on the forms of beauty. ”

“ The delicacy of their sex, the vivid perceptibility of their mind, and the soft and engaging virtues of their heart, which weave themselves into the rugged recesses of man's masculine temperament and constitute him a fit member of society, render them entitled to the warmest affections of your heart, and to the generous protection of your arm. ”

“ But, on the other hand, her intellect excels precisely in those qualities habitually believed to be masculine, one of its chief characteristics consisting in the grasp of abstract philosophical ideas. ”

“ The masculine character, the ability to dare and endure, to know and yet not fear reality, to look the world in the face and take it for what it is—a very queer and partly very base mixture—that is what I want to preserve, or rather, as I may say, to recover ”

“ Let us pass now to a much more serious instance of those artificial divisions between masculine and feminine habits of thought and action which have in the past seemed so absolute, and are, in fact, so impossible to maintain. ”

“ The implications are that the masculine mind is slightly more variable, the feminine slightly better in perception; and that the relation between early and later ability is one not of antagonism, but of resemblance. ”

“ We devoted much thought in those days to the subject of masculine attire—possibly with some obscure notion of attracting the weaker sex by the brilliancy of our plumage—and the villain always fascinated while he revolted us. ”

“ The peculiar changes brought about in family life by the predominance of the male are easily traced. In these studies we must keep clearly in mind the basic masculine characteristics: desire, combat, self-expression—all legitimate and right in proper use; only mischievous when excessive or out of place. Through them the male is led to strenuous competition for the favor of the female ”

“ Keeping to the abstract heights we have chosen, too abstract and general to be affected by exceptions, we may further say that the masculine mind is characterized by the predominance of the intellect, and the feminine by the predominance of the emotions. ”

“ He also unites in Himself individual qualities of seeming incompatibility. In Him the most masculine qualities are united with those which are usually regarded as feminine, such as gentleness, patience, devotion. ”

“ On the whole, men as a class probably show a preponderance of what may be termed masculine characteristics, as greater egoism, variability, activity; but these masculine characteristics have been modified, lessened, effeminized, so to speak. In the higher [Pg 47] type of man the best and highest feminine characteristics have been fused with the best and highest masculine characteristics. The fighting instinct, for instance, has become moral courage; the tendency to vary expresses itself in great intellectual development ”

“ Certain masculine qualities, so-called, may be singled out by amateur psychologists and opposed to certain feminine qualities, so-called; but from books about the sphere of man, the rights of man, the intelligence of man, the psychology of man, the soul of man, our shelves are mercifully free. ”

“ So also in each mind, whether of man or woman, there is the masculine and feminine element. The man has his intellectual faculties, and his affectional or sentimental nature. But in him, if he be a true man, the first are in control, and give tone, vigor and character to all else within him. ”

“ There is a fundamental difference, then, between the essentially masculine and the essentially feminine type of character, according as the individual gets his satisfactions—the relaxations of his tensions of desire—via the route of feelings caused in him by the action of others or via the route of feelings caused in him by the true and illusionless perception that he has produced effects in other persons or in other things. ”

“ Under such influences they will acquire all the masculine virtues and forces, at the same time, of course, they must also have taken all the masculine weaknesses and vices into the bargain: so much, as has been said, we can command. ”

“ Having framed a more or less definite idea of the masculine character, in constructing the feminine helpmeet they look out, if not for the directly opposite, for what they would call the complementary qualities, and the conclusion quickly follows, that whatever is manly must be unwomanly, and vice versâ. ”

“ They would spend hours, for instance, in deciding what they would or would not tolerate in a suitor or a husband, and the frailties of masculine nature were too often a subject of discussion among them. ”

“ Let us review the threefold distinction on which this whole study rests, between masculine, feminine and human. Grant that woman, being feminine, cannot emulate man in being masculine—and does not want to. ”

“ Is it not that it would have us to be manly, and to be effeminate neither in person and actions, nor in thought and word? For it would have the man, that devotes himself to the truth, to be masculine both in acts of endurance and patience, in life, conduct, word, and discipline by night and by day ”

“ Except in a few rare instances, where the men unite to the hardier qualities of the masculine intelligence the nicer, finer, most susceptible instincts of the other sex,—the organization that more than any other touches on excellence,—except, I say, in these cases, the women have the best of it. ”

“ If the historians gave them any place at all, it was an insignificant one, concerning only their relations to men, and they were more inclined to sing the praises of those who ministered to masculine caprices than of those distinguished for any merit whatever. ”

“ We can see the masculine influence everywhere still dominant and superior. There is the first spur, Desire, the base of the reward system, the incentive of self-interest, the attitude which says, "Why should I make an effort unless it will give me pleasure?" ”

“ Sometimes I admire your restraint; but just now I am beginning to wonder if— Well, I’m wondering whether you have any masculine traits at all—if you have any pep in you, which is so necessary to holding one’s own in this world—so necessary to success. ”

“ As it is, there are some remarkable and (we think) indispensable types of character18 in whom there is such a union or balance of the feminine and masculine qualities that these people become to a great extent the interpreters of men and women to each other. ”

“ The masculine character and life are rigid and angular, and the apparel should, or at least may, proclaim the man. But with the soft, rounded nature of woman, her bending flexibility of temper, angles are absolutely incompatible. ”

“ This is rather too coarse a compliment, but you are so saucy, I won't blot it out. Depend upon it, we know better than to repeal our masculine systems. Although they are in full force, you know they are little more than theory. ”

“ In order to maintain that the masculine character coincides with that of the undeveloped woman, it would be necessary to show that the latter during her infancy possesses the male characters predominating—that is, unimpressibility, judgment, physical courage, and the like. ”

“ Aren't men funny? When they want to pay you the greatest compliment in their power, they naively tell you that you have a masculine mind. There is one compliment, incidentally, that I shall never be paying him. I cannot honestly say that he has a quickness of perception almost feminine. ”

“ Masculine may apply to the distinctive qualities of the male sex at any age; virile applies to the distinctive qualities of mature manhood only, as opposed not only to feminine or womanly but to childish, and is thus an emphatic word for sturdy, intrepid, etc. ”

“ There are men of all ages, young, middle-aged, and old, who possess many estimable virtues, who show physical courage wherever it is necessary, who are honourable, strong, industrious, and tenacious of purpose, but who undeniably lack something which belongs to the ideal man, and which, for want of a better word, we call the masculine element. ”

“ You complain of our masculine appearance in our riding habits, and indeed we think it is but reasonable that we should make reprisals upon you for the invasion of our dress and figure, and the advances you make in effeminency, and your degeneracy from the figure of man. ”

“ The soul is a masculine character, pleasing to women in the same way and for the same purpose as a masculine body or a well-trimmed moustache. I may be accused of stating the case coarsely, but it is none the less true. ”

“ Now, we can easily see advantages in it; the masculine gender is intended to be more out of doors, and more in all weathers than the smooth-chinned ones, and this protects him and his Adam's apple from harm. ”

“ Meanwhile any anthropologist will show you that the line of human development is away from that feature of the bulldog and the alligator, and toward the measured dignity of the Greek type. The possessor of that kind of jaw may enable male to conquer male, but does not make him of any more service to society; of any better health or higher beauty.
Further, in the external decoration of our bodies, what is the influence here of masculine dominance. ”

“ He was at the brightest period of masculine growth, for his intellect and his emotions were clearly separated: he had passed the time during which the influence of youth indiscriminately mingles them in the character of impulse, and he had not yet arrived at the stage wherein they become united again, in the character of prejudice, by the influence of a wife and family. ”

“ What would be the effect upon the masculine character and comfort if this shyness should become general, as it may in a contingency that is already on the horizon? We refer, of course, to the suggestion, coming from various quarters, that women should propose. ”

“ What might have been termed her masculine method was based on the broad, general principle that the adult male is most interested in the persons most interested in him, and it never failed, in its many modifications, of effect. ”

“ Altogether, the face was cast in a rare and intellectual mould, and, if wanting in those more luxuriant attractions common to the age of the stranger, who could scarcely have attained his twenty-sixth year, it betokened, at least, that predominance of mind over body which in some eyes is the most requisite characteristic of masculine beauty. ”

“ For when these thus fall under observation, if the luminaries are unattended in masculine signs, males exceed in the natural, and females exceed in the unnatural quality, so as merely to increase the virility and activity of the soul. ”

“ He made a ____ donation to the endowment fund. (Insert the four words in the blank space in turn, and analyze the differences in meaning.)
<Masculine, male, manly, manlike, manful, mannish, virile>.
"A man's a man for a' that," sang the poet. So he is, but not all the adjectives allusive to his state are equally complimentary. Masculine betokens the qualities and characteristics belonging to men. Male designates sex and is used of animals as well as human beings. ”

“ In their case the tenderness shown to masculine failings, the desire to save the masculine “face,” is usually quite conscious—I myself have heard it frankly discussed, analyzed, and commented upon, time after time, by women whose occupations brought them into daily contact with men. And as the result of such frank discussion, analysis, and comment, I am inclined to believe that on the whole the motives which, in this particular class of women, induce extra consideration for the failings of a male fellow-worker are motives which, in man himself, would164 probably be described as chivalrous. ”

“ He had fallen into the usual masculine blunder of mixing up smartness of intelligence with strength of character. ”

“ and he almost longed to ask her to do for him what he saw her compelled to do for her father, who took her little finger and thumb in his masculine hand, and made them serve as sugar-tongs. ”

“ Further down the male side of the scale, after the man of adventure and sport, come, successively, the stevedore and his like, the manual laborer, and the merchant, and still lower, the scholar, which class possesses in general only a comparatively low degree of masculinity and virility. Partaking largely of the feminine type of mind are the male dress-maker and milliner, and the dilettante.
Those at the extremity of the male side of the scale, as the volunteer soldier and sailor, are the most strongly inclined to venery, as a general rule. ”