“It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser. It is better to live and be done with it, than to die daily in the sick-room.”
315.
Aes Triplex (1878)
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Robert Louis Stevenson 118
Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer 1850–1894Related quotes
“Health is the greatest of all possessions; a pale cobbler is better than a sick king.”
Reported in Tryon Edwards, A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908), p. 221.
“It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die.”
Quoted in Scott MacLeod, "South Africa: Extremes in Black and Whites" http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,975037,00.html, Time, March 9, 1992, p. 38
Quoted in "The Mind of Black Africa" (1996) by Dickson A. Mungazi, p. 159
“Is it not better to die valiantly, than ignominiously to lose our wretched and dishonoured lives after being the sport of others’ insolence?”
Nonne emori per virtutem praestat quam vitam miseram atque inhonestam, ubi alienae superbiae ludibrio fueris, per dedecus amittere?
Quoted in Sallust, Catiline's War, Book XX, pt. 9 (trans. J. C. Rolfe).
Variant translation: Is it not better to die in a glorious attempt, than, after having been the sport of other men's insolence, to resign a wretched and degraded existence with ignominy?
“It is better to live rich, than to die rich.”
April 17, 1778
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III
“one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or a rat in a trap”
“To live like a lion for a day is far better than to live for a hundred years like a jackal.”
As quoted in Encyclopedia of Asian History (1988) Vol. 4, p. 104
Variants:
It is far better to live like a lion for a day than to live like a jackal for a hundred years.
It is far better to live like a tiger for a day than to live like a jackal for a hundred years.
Variant mentioned in Tipu Sultan : A Study in Diplomacy and Confrontation (1982) by B. Sheikh Ali, p. 329