“The best known evil is the most tolerable.”

—  Livy

Book XXIII, sec. 3
History of Rome
Variant: Those ills are easiest to bear with which we are most familiar.

Original

Notissimum [...] malum maxime tolerabile

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 1, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The best known evil is the most tolerable." by Livy?
Livy photo
Livy 70
Roman historian -59–17 BC

Related quotes

Michel De Montaigne photo

“The oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried.”

Book III, Ch. 9. Of Vanity
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Rutherford B. Hayes photo

“General education is the best preventive of the evils now most dreaded.”

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)

Diary (15 May 1878)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)
Context: General education is the best preventive of the evils now most dreaded. In the civilized countries of the world, the question is how to distribute most generally and equally the property of the world. As a rule, where education is most general the distribution of property is most general.... As knowledge spreads, wealth spreads. To diffuse knowledge is to diffuse wealth. To give all an equal chance to acquire knowledge is the best and surest way to give all an equal chance to acquire property.

Thomas Mann photo

“Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.”

Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 6, section, A Good Soldier as translated by Woods (1996), p. 506

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi photo

“We as Muslims, We have to be honest. Islam has talked about trustiness, Are we known as truthful? Islam has talked about perfecting the work, are we known with that? Islam talked about tolerance, are we known as tolerants?”

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (1954) Current President of Egypt

Remarks by el-Sisi during celebrating the night of El-Kadr on 25 July 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6d_ln9MQHk.
2014

Fulton J. Sheen photo
Jawaharlal Nehru photo

“Because we have sought to cover up past evil, though it still persists, we have been powerless to check the new evil of today.
Evil unchecked grows, Evil tolerated poisons the whole system.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

The Unity of India : Collected Writings, 1937-1940 (1942), p. 280
Context: Because we have sought to cover up past evil, though it still persists, we have been powerless to check the new evil of today.
Evil unchecked grows, Evil tolerated poisons the whole system. And because we have tolerated our past and present evils, international affairs are poisoned and law and justice have disappeared from them.

“Perhaps the best known, and certainly the most vaunted, "discovery" of modern public opinion research is the indifference and ignorance of a majority of the electorate in western democracies.”

Moses I. Finley (1912–1986) American historian

Source: Democracy Ancient And Modern (Second Edition) (1985), Chapter 1, Leaders and Followers, p. 3

Begum Aga Khan photo

“Families are the best place to learn and practice mutual tolerance and acceptance.”

Begum Aga Khan (1963) German philanthropist

Interview with FOCUS Magazine, July 2005 http://www.princessinaara.org/news/Focus-07-2005.pdf

Henry David Thoreau photo

“Fire is the most tolerable third party.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

January 2, 1853
Journals (1838-1859)

Related topics