“Two great poets are stronger than two thousand mediocrities”
31
Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991), The Catholic Writer Today (2013)
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Dana Gioia80
American writer 1950Related quotes
William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) American conservative author and commentator
Listen the to actual quoted words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nf_bu-kBr4
1963 statement, as quoted in The Quote Verifier : Who Said What, Where, and When (2006) by Ralph Keyes, p. 82
Meet the Press (1965), as quoted in The Quote Verifier : Who Said What, Where, and When (2006) by Ralph Keyes, p. 82
The numbers cited in paraphrases of this quote often vary from 100 to 2000.
Unsourced variant: I would rather be governed by the first 2000 names in the Boston phone book than by the 2000 members of the faculty of Harvard University.
Variant: I would rather be governed by the first two thousand people in the Boston telephone directory than by the two thousand people on the faculty of Harvard University.
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) English poet
Letter to A.W.M. Baillie (10 September 1864)
Letters, etc
Horace Bushnell (1802–1876) American theologian
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 601.
Emile Zola (1840–1902) French writer (1840-1902)
Letter to Paul Cézanne (16 April 1860), as published in Paul Cézanne : Letters (1995) edited by John Rewald.
“One idiot is one idiot. Two idiots are two idiots. Ten thousand idiots are a political party.”
Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author
Was written in a slightly different way by Leo Longanesi in Italian, above form has been attributed to Kafka without evidence. <br class="br">Misattributed <br class="br">Source: One Idiot Is One Idiot. Two Idiots Are Two Idiots. Ten Thousand Idiots Are a Political Party, Quote Investigator, 2021-10-08 https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/10/08/idiots/,