“The best is the best, though a hundred judges have declared it so; nor had it been any feat to search out and insert the second-rate merely because it happened to be recondite.”

— Arthur Quiller-Couch

Oxford Book of English Verse, Introduction

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The best is the best, though a hundred judges have declared it so; nor had it been any feat to search out and insert th…" by Arthur Quiller-Couch?

Arthur Quiller-Couch 7

British writer and literary critic 1863–1944

Related quotes

“First best is falling in love. Second best is being in love. Least best is falling out of love. But any of it is better than never having been in love.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

“Second is best because God rewards the quest.”

Kip McKean (1954) minister

In his sermon, The Promised Land On The Second Try, World Missions Jubilee 2010, Sunday August 8, 2012
International Christian Church (2006-present)

“I cannot choose one hundred best books because I have only written five”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“I don't play in any tournaments to come second best.”

Andy Murray (1987) British tennis player

“In Australia by 1890, the rate of union membership in the workforce had become the highest in the world. Was this because pay and conditions in Australia were the worst? No; it was because they were the best. Workers who lived in a society that had already yielded so much to them were confident that it could yield much more.”

John Hirst (1942–2016) Australian historian

Australian History in 7 Questions (2014)

“Men often oppose a thing, merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike. But if they have been consulted, and have happened to disapprove, opposition then becomes, in their estimation, an indispensable duty of self-love.”

Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

Federalist No. 70 (18 March 1788)
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)
Context: Men often oppose a thing, merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike. But if they have been consulted, and have happened to disapprove, opposition then becomes, in their estimation, an indispensable duty of self-love. They seem to think themselves bound in honor, and by all the motives of personal infallibility, to defeat the success of what has been resolved upon contrary to their sentiments. Men of upright, benevolent tempers have too many opportunities of remarking, with horror, to what desperate lengths this disposition is sometimes carried, and how often the great interests of society are sacrificed to the vanity, to the conceit, and to the obstinacy of individuals, who have credit enough to make their passions and their caprices interesting to mankind. Perhaps the question now before the public may, in its consequences, afford melancholy proofs of the effects of this despicable frailty, or rather detestable vice, in the human character.