“Death aims with fouler spite
At fairer marks.”
Divine Poems (ed. 1669). Compare: "Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow", Edward Young, Night Thoughts, night v. line 1011.
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Francis Quarles 23
English poet 1592–1644Related quotes
“We aim above the mark to hit the mark.”
“Life isn't just fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all. -William Goldman”
Source: The Second Summer of the Sisterhood
“No fairer law in all the land
Than that death-dealers die by what they've planned.”
Neque enim lex aequior ulla est,
Quam necis artifices arte perire sua.
Book I, lines 655–656 (tr. Len Krisak)
Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)
“Do not aim low, you will miss the mark. Aim high and you will be on a threshold of bliss.”
Source: Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom, p. 177
“We aimed far and high, but we did not miss the mark.”
Part 4, 1979 - 1984 "Welcome to the 1980's", p. 340
Memoirs (1993)
“3769. One may as much miss the Mark, by aiming too high, as too low.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
Attributed without citation in Ken Robinson, The Element (2009), p. 260. Widely attributed to Michelangelo since the late 1990s, this adage has not been found before 1980 when it appeared without attribution in E. C. McKenzie, Mac's giant book of quips & quotes.
Disputed
Variant: The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.
