Jean Anouilh Quotes

I wish I'd known that apologizing is a sign of strength. I had the impression that if you apologize, it's a sign of weakness. I kind of picked up the message from my father, 'Real men don't apologize. You just do your best, and if you happen to hurt some people, that's their fault. You just go on. Don't apologize. That's a sign of weakness.'

In today's society, a lot of males think you have to be strong all the time, and you're not allowed to show weakness. That's just so false.

One thing I want to teach my son is sensitivity to other people. I want to teach him not to be this macho freak.

Young guys don't tend to want to portray people who have frailties or are less than macho.

I'm very sensitive in real life. I cannot not cry if someone around me is crying. I will start to cry if someone is crying, even if it's not appropriate. I have that thing in me, a weakness or sensitivity.

Most men are fragile.

Forgiveness is hard for me, man. It is for most American-Western males. It's a sign of weakness.

I challenge you [other men] to see if you can use the same qualities that you feel make you a man to go deeper into yourself. Your strength, your bravery, your toughness: Can we redefine what those mean and use them to explore our hearts? Are you brave enough to be vulnerable? To reach out to another man when you need help? To dive headfirst into your shame? Are you strong enough to be sensitive, to cry whether you are hurting or you're happy, even if it makes you look weak? Are you confident enough to listen to the women in your life? To hear their ideas and their solutions? To hold their anguish and actually believe them, even if what they're saying is against you? And will you be man enough to stand up to other men when you hear "locker room talk," when you hear stories of sexual harassment? When you hear your boys talking about grabbing ass or getting her drunk, will you actually stand up and do something so that one day we don't have to live in a world where a woman has to risk everything and come forward to say the words "me too?"

Most guys, tough or not, hide emotions. I know a lot of tough guys; they're just as weak as the next man, but they don't show it.

I have confidence in my manhood to be able to cry at a movie or at a wedding, too.

Tough guys have to be tough. But tough guys don't have to be guys.

Brittle masculinity, in the right setting, becomes political atrocity. Strength brings problems; weakness brings others, but weakness posing as strength is the most dangerous of all.

I wish that we lived in a time and a generation where people would stop viewing my honesty as overly emotional. People always act like I spend my life crying in a dark room. I don't, I'm good. I'm a man.

I think some of those guys might actually be better off if they had more wussy in them.

Strong men can always afford to be gentle. Only the weak are intent on giving as good as they get.

If a boy is not trained to endure and to bear trouble, he will grow up a girl; and a boy that is a girl has all a girl's weakness without any of her regal qualities. A woman made out of a woman is God's noblest work; a woman made out of a man is His meanest.

Patriarchy values the hard over the soft; the tough over the tender; punishment, vengeance, and vindictiveness over compassion, negotiation, and reconciliation. The 'hard' qualities are linked to power, success, and masculinity - and exalted. The 'soft' qualities are identified with weakness, powerlessness, and femininity - and denigrated.

It should be easy for a man who's strong to say he's sorry or admit when he's wrong.

Linda seemed to recognize loneliness. Possibly she could see it sitting opposite her, sipping lager and trying not to lose its temper. It was an illness, loneliness-it made you weak, gullible, feebleminded.

We need to ditch the idea that there is any value in the strong and silent man being in any way attractive. Being silent isn't being strong, it's being a victim.

I fancied I had some constancy of mind because I could bear my own sufferings, but found through the sufferings of others I could be weakened like a child.

A lot of guys have muscles. A lot of strong men in this world. I think it's important to show that even under all this strength there's a fragile side, a side that can be affected.

I don't think that you have to be effeminate to be sensitive.

Most men act so tough and strong on the outside because on the inside, we are scared, weak, and fragile. Men, not women, are the weaker sex.

Well, softness and femininity like yours people don't expect of me; so when they find me emotional and capable of real vulnerability, they're surprised.