“What comes from this quarter, set it down as so much gain.”

Source: 1930s, In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935), Ch. 2: 'Useless' Knowledge

[The Struggle for Existence: A Programme, The Nineteenth Century, 23, February 1888, 161–180, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.a0012287587&view=1up&seq=173] (quote from p. 163)
1880s

The Only Tobin Bell Interview You'll Ever Need http://movieline.com/2009/10/16/tobin-bell-interview/ (October 16, 2009)

As quoted in "Voices of the New Time" as translated by C. C. Shackford in The Radical Vol. 7 (1870), p. 329

XV. Why we give worship to the Gods when they need nothing.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Context: The divine itself is without needs, and the worship is paid for our own benefit. The providence of the Gods reaches everywhere and needs only some congruity for its reception. All congruity comes about by representation and likeness; for which reason the temples are made in representation of heaven, the altar of earth, the images of life (that is why they are made like living things), the prayers of the element of though, the mystic letters of the unspeakable celestial forces, the herbs and stones of matter, and the sacrificial animals of the irrational life in us.
From all these things the Gods gain nothing; what gain could there be to God? It is we who gain some communion with them.

In Search of a Better World (1984)
Context: Why do I think that we, the intellectuals, are able to help? Simply because we, the intellectuals, have done the most terrible harm for thousands of years. Mass murder in the name of an idea, a doctrine, a theory, a religion — that is all our doing, our invention: the invention of the intellectuals. If only we would stop setting man against man — often with the best intentions — much would be gained. Nobody can say that it is impossible for us to stop doing this.

Source: Utopia (1516), Ch. 8 : Of Their Military Discipline
Context: In no victory do they glory so much as in that which is gained by dexterity and good conduct without bloodshed. In such cases they appoint public triumphs, and erect trophies to the honour of those who have succeeded; for then do they reckon that a man acts suitably to his nature, when he conquers his enemy in such a way as that no other creature but a man could be capable of, and that is by the strength of his understanding. Bears, lions, boars, wolves, and dogs, and all other animals, employ their bodily force one against another, in which, as many of them are superior to men, both in strength and fierceness, so they are all subdued by his reason and understanding.

Canto X, stanza 6 (tr. J. Hoole)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

Book X, line 32
Translations, Orlando Furioso of Ludovico Ariosto (1773)