“It is quality rather than quantity that matters.”
Source: Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XLV: On sophistical argumentation, Line 1
Original
Non refert quam multos sed quam bonos habeas.
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Seneca the Younger 225
Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist -4–65 BCRelated quotes
Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders : Academe in the Hour of the Wolf, p. 237
“Love is a quality, not a quantity.”
Shades of the World (1985)
“To me, it's always about quality not quantity.”
Lee explaining why she's not releasing her music "too often" in the show small talk
“Quantity has a quality all its own.”
No evidence that this phrasing is due to Stalin, and it does not appear in English translations of his philosphical works. Earliest English is found in 1979 in US defense industry, presumably defense consultant Thomas A. Callaghan Jr. The connection of sufficient quantitative change leading to qualitative change is found in Marxist philosophy, by Marx and Engels, drawing from Hegelian philosophy and Ancient Greek philosophy. Marx and Engels are quoted by Stalin, but this formulation appears to be a modern American form; see quantity for details.
Stalin may have said that way before World War II, there is evidence in his Russian-language books, for example here http://www.modernlib.ru/books/stalin_iosif_vissarionovich/tom_14/read_16/.
Misattributed
Variant: Quantity is quality.
Source: Re: "Quantity has a quality all its own" source? http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-russia&month=1004&week=a&msg=ljEwsM4dMrpmUGVfI7EGqg, Tim Davenport, h-russia https://networks.h-net.org/h-russia, April 5, 2010
“Rest comes not from the quantity but from the quality of sleep.”
Aphorisms
“Wherever there are qualities there are likewise quantities, but not always vice versa.”
Vol. VIII, p. 47ff.
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia, ed. Christian Frisch (1858)
“It is the quality of our work which will please God, not the quantity.”
“A decrease in the quantity of legislation generally means an increase in the quality of life.”
Column, December 23, 2007, "The Gift Of Doing Very Little" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/21/AR2007122101922.html at washingtonpost.com.
2000s