“The trouble with sharing too many beds was that one’s chance of running into a really bad situation was improved almost to certainty.”
A Kind of Murder (p. 66)
Short fiction, A Hole in Space (1974)
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Larry Niven138
American writer 1938Related quotes
Stephen R. Covey book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker
On his election to Académie Française (1955)
“Man, whence is he? / Too bad to be the work of a god, too good for the work of chance.”
Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, as quoted in Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources (1899) by James Wood, p. 61; usually attributed to Doris Lessing in the form: "Man — who is he? Too bad, to be the work of God: Too good for the work of chance!"
Misattributed
“Man, whence is he?
Too bad to be the work of a god, too good for the work of chance.”
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781) writer, philosopher, publicist, and art critic
Der Mensch, wo ist er her?
Zu schlecht für einen Gott, zu gut fürs Ungefähr.
As quoted in Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources (1899) by James Wood, p. 61
Variant: Man — who is he? Too bad to be the work of God; Too good for the work of chance!
Simone de Beauvoir book The Ethics of Ambiguity
Part I : Ambiguity and Freedom http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/ambiguity/ch01.htm <br class="br">The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947) <br class="br">Context: At the present time there still exist many doctrines which choose to leave in the shadow certain troubling aspects of a too complex situation. But their attempt to lie to us is in vain. Cowardice doesn’t pay. Those reasonable metaphysics, those consoling ethics with which they would like to entice us only accentuate the disorder from which we suffer.
Sinclair Lewis book Dodsworth
Dodsworth, Ch. 10 http://books.google.com/books?id=_nL1PGgdVDIC&q=%22The+trouble+with+this+country+is%22+%22that+there're+too+many+people+going+about+saying%22&pg=PA82#v=onepage (1929)
Dinah Shore (1916–1994) American singer and actress
Quoted in Sy Safransky: Sunbeams: a book of quotations, (1990), Page 124 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=A5NiEt9h2AIC&pg=PA124&dq=%22Trouble+is+a+part+of+your+life,+and+if+you+don%27t+share+it,%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4IUxT6rKFMzfsgbC6tyVBA&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Trouble%20is%20a%20part%20of%20your%20life%2C%20and%20if%20you%20don%27t%20share%20it%2C%22&f=false