Why do we say "A man's got to do what a man's got to do"?

Well-Known Expressions

A man's got to do what a man's got to do

Meaning:

One must do what is necessary to achieve your aims, whatever the consequences.

Background:

According to America's Popular Proverbs and Sayings edited by Gregory Titelman (1996), this not particularly profound expression is attributed to a line spoken by John Wayne in the 1939 western Stagecoach. However, in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1939) Jim Casey expresses a very similar thought:

Casey said quickly, "I know this - a man got to do what he got to do. I can't tell you. I don't think they's luck or bad luck. On'y one thing in this worl' I'm sure of, an' that's I'm sure nobody got a right to mess with a fella's life. He got to do it all hisself. Help him, maybe, but not tell him what to do."

More expressions and their source

Challenge yourself with BookBrowse Wordplays

Join BookBrowse

for a year of great reading
about exceptional books!

Find out more


Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The Prince and the Coyote
    The Prince and the Coyote
    by David Bowles
    At fifteen, Crown Prince Acolmiztli is preparing to enter the calmecac, the temple school that will ...
  • Book Jacket: North Woods
    North Woods
    by Daniel Mason
    "History haunts him who does not honor it." This incidental line from Daniel Mason's North Woods ...
  • Book Jacket
    One Puzzling Afternoon
    by Emily Critchley
    While British author Emily Critchley's graceful novel One Puzzling Afternoon is about cognitive ...
  • Book Jacket: A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    by Raul Palma
    Raul Palma's debut novel A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens introduces Hugo Contreras, who came to the ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
Trouble the Living
by Francesca McDonnell Capossela
A mother and daughter confront the past in this enthralling debut set in Ireland and California.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    This Is Salvaged
    by Vauhini Vara

    Stories of uncanny originality from Vauhini Vara, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.

  • Book Jacket

    Alfie and Me
    by Carl Safina

    A moving account of raising, then freeing, an orphaned screech owl. Three starred reviews!

Who Said...

It is among the commonplaces of education that we often first cut off the living root and then try to replace its ...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

One N U G

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.