Chacun de nous a un jour, plus ou moins triste, plus ou moins lointain, o  u' il doit enfin accepter d'e"  tre un homme. There will come a day for each of us, more or less sad, more or less distant, whenwe must accept the condition of being human.

-Anouilh,Jean
  Antigone.

If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves? as they must be if the being subjected to the inconsistent, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of men, be the perfect condition of slavery? and if the essence of freedom consists, as our masters say it does, in having a standing rule to live by? And why is slavery so much condemnedandstroveagainst inonecase, andsohighly applauded, and held so necessary and so sacred in another?

-Astell, Mary
  Some Reflections upon MarriageOccasion'd by the Duke and Duchess of Mazarine's Case which is also consider'd, preface (1706 edn).

Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants, but not always best subjects, for they are light to run away, and almost all fugitives are of that condition.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.8,'Of Marriage and the Single Life'.

A feeling generally exists that the condition and disposition of the Working Class is a rather ominous matter at present; that something ought to be said, something ought to be done, in regard to it.

-Carlyle,Thomas
  Chartism, ch.1.

Any work that aspires, however humbly, tothe condition of art should carry its justification in every line.

-Korzeniowski
  The Nigger of the Narcissus, preface.

Equality of condition is incompatible with civilization, and is found only to exist in those communities that are but slightly removed from the savage state. In practice, it can only mean a common misery.

-Cooper,James Fenimore
  The American Democrat,'On the Disadvantages of a Monarchy'.

The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt.

-Curran,John Philpot
  Speech, Dublin,10  Jul.

To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.

-Graves, Robert von Ranke
  Response to a questionnaire from the editor of Horizon.

It's probably a reflection of my own, if I may say, loneliness. I don't know. It could be the whole human condition.

-Hopper, Edward
On the mood and content of his paintings. Quoted in the Washington Post, 25  Jun1995.

The fact of affluence is indisputable† Nevertheless, not manyof us feel that well off.The instinct forcontentment seemstohave withered even as oureconomic condition has radically improved.

-Krasna, Norman
  Two Cheers for Capitalism, ch.1.

The years before and after the menstrual years are vestigial: the only meaningful condition left to women is that of fruitfulness.

-Le Guin, Ursula ne¤  e Kroeber
  'The Space Crone', in The Co-Evolution Quarterly, Summer.

The poet knowshimselfonlyonthe conditionthatthings resound in him, and that in him, at a single awakening, theyand he come forth together out of sleep.

-Maritain,Jacques
Quoted in Robert Fitzgerald (ed) Enlarging the Change (1985).

A stationary condition of capital and population implies no stationary state of human improvement. There could be as much scope as ever for all kinds of mental culture, and moral and social progress.

-Mill,John Stuart
 Principles of Political Economy, with Some Applications to Social Philosophy.

The average condition of the people improving or deteriorating, depends upon whether population is advancing faster than improvement, or improvement than population.

-Mill,John Stuart
  Principles of Political Economy, with Some Applications to Social Philosophy.

If the universe had a beginning, its beginning, by the very condition of the cases, was supernatural; the laws of Nature cannot account for their own origin.

-Mill,John Stuart
  Auguste Comte and Positivism.

The unexempt condition By which all mortal frailty must subsist, Refreshment after toil, ease after pain.

-Milton,John
  Comus,  A Mask, l.684^6.

He passed rapidly through his marriages toVirginia Cherrill,Barbara Huttonand Betsy Drakeand filled inthe lonely gaps between them by falling in and out of love with most of his leading ladies, which, as his output of films was prodigious, underlined the excellence of his physical condition.

-Niven, David originally James David Graham Nevins
  Of Cary Grant. Bring on the Empty Horses.

Condition de l'homme: inconstance, ennui, inquie¤  tude. Man's condition. Inconstancy, boredom, anxiety.

-Pascal, Blaise
c.1654^1662  Pense¤  es, no.127 (translated byA Krailsheimer).

En un mot, l'homme conna|"t qu'il est mise¤  rable: il est donc mise¤  rable, puisqu'il l'est; mais il est bien grand, puisqu'il le conna|"t. In one word, man knows that he is miserable and therefore he is miserable because he knows it; but he is also worthy, because he knows his condition.

-Pascal, Blaise
c.1654^1662  Pense¤  es, pt.6, no.416.

All art constantlyaspires towardsthe condition of music.

-Pater,Walter
  'The School of Giorgione' in Studies in the History of the Renaissance.