“Comparisons are odious.”
Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 23.
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Miguel de Cervantes178
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright 1547–1616Related quotes
John Fortescue (1394–1476) Chief Justice of the King's Bench of England
De laudibus legum Angliae (c. 1470), ch. xix, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) English dramatist, poet and translator
Lust's Dominion (c. 1600), Act iii. scene 4. The first edition attributed the authorship of this play to Marlowe, though this attribution has been recognized as spurious by critics and scholars for nearly two centuries. See Logan and Smith, Predecessors of Shakespeare, p. 32. But compare: "Comparisons are odious", John Fortescue, De Laudibus Leg. Angliæ, Chapter xix.
Misattributed
“714. Comparisons are odious.”
George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest
Jacula Prudentum (1651)
“1134. Comparisons are odious.”
Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“She, and comparisons are odious.”
John Donne (1572–1631) English poet
No. 8, The Comparison, line 54. Compare: "Comparisons are odious", John Fortescue, De Laudibus Leg. Angliæ, Chap. xix; "Comparisons are odorous", William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, act iii, scene v
Elegies
“Never compare one person with another: comparisons are odious.”
Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) Roman Catholic saint
Maxim 44, p. 259
Maxims for Her Nuns (1963)
“Comparison is the thief of joy.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
As quoted in Becoming a Great School (2013) by Cooper, Gustafson and Salah, p. ix
Disputed