Ægeus, Frag. 7
En toutes compagnies il y a plus de folz que de sages, et la plus grande partie surmonte tousjours la meilleure.
Chapter 10 http://books.google.com/books?id=wfRKAQAAIAAJ&q=%22En+toutes+compagnies+il+y+a+plus+de+folz+que+de+sages+et+la+plus+grande+partie+surmonte+tousjours+la+meilleure%22&pg=PA285#v=onepage.
Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Pantagruel (1532)
We need to talk about an injustice https://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice|
“Even the company of the mad was better than the company of the dead.”
Source: The Stand
“Wealth and poverty do not lie in a person's estate, but in their souls.”
iv. 34
From Symposium by Xenophon
This is from a set of maxims which Washington copied out in his own hand as a school-boy: "Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/the-rules-of-civility/" Rule # 56 written out by Washington ca. 1744:
: These maxims originated in the late sixteenth century in France and were popularly circulated during Washington's time. Washington wrote out a copy of the 110 Rules in his school book when he was about sixteen-years old... During the days before mere hero worship had given place to understanding and comprehension of the fineness of Washington's character, of his powerful influence among men, and of the epoch-making nature of the issues he so largely shaped, it was assumed that Washington himself composed the maxims, or at least that he compiled them. It is a satisfaction to find that his consideration for others, his respect for and deference to those deserving such treatment, his care of his own body and tongue, and even his reverence for his Maker, all were early inculcated in him by precepts which were the common practice in decent society the world over. These very maxims had been in use in France for a century and a half, and in England for a century, before they were set as a task for the schoolboy Washington.
:* Charles Moore in his Introduction to George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation (1926) http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/civility/index.html, edited by Charles Moore, xi-xv
Misattributed
“It is better to be alone than in bad company.”
Letter to his niece, Harriet Washington (30 October 1791)
1790s
Variant: It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.
Incorrectly attributed to Foster, according to snopes.com https://www.snopes.com/attacking-the-rich/
Misattributed
Bion, 3.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 4: The Academy
From her last House of Commons speech (22 November 1990) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108256; response to M.P. Simon Hughes
Third term as Prime Minister
1790s, Letter to the Addressers (1792)
Context: It is from a strange mixture of tyranny and cowardice that exclusions have been set up and continued. The boldness to do wrong at first, changes afterwards into cowardly craft, and at last into fear. The Representatives in England appear now to act as if they were afraid to do right, even in part, lest it should awaken the nation to a sense of all the wrongs it has endured. This case serves to shew that the same conduct that best constitutes the safety of an individual, namely, a strict adherence to principle, constitutes also the safety of a Government, and that without it safety is but an empty name. When the rich plunder the poor of his rights, it becomes an example of the poor to plunder the rich of his property, for the rights of the one are as much property to him as wealth is property to the other and the little all is as dear as the much. It is only by setting out on just principles that men are trained to be just to each other; and it will always be found, that when the rich protect the rights of the poor, the poor will protect the property of the rich. But the guarantee, to be effectual, must be parliamentarily reciprocal.
