“The best is the enemy of the good.”

— Bjarne Stroustrup

Conference Madrid 2019

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Bjarne Stroustrup30

Danish computer scientist, creator of C++ 1950

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“The best is the enemy of the good.”

Voltaire La Bégueule

Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. "La Bégueule" (Contes, 1772) Variant translations:The perfect is the enemy of the good. The better is the enemy of the good. translation of earlier traditional Italian Il meglio è nemico del bene, attested since 1603: Proverbi italiani (Italian Proverbs), by Orlando Pescetti http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/orlando-pescetti/ (c. 1556 – c. 1624) ( p. 30 https://books.google.com/books?id=0fkXqSJmiyEC&pg=PA30-IA2&q=%22Il%20meglio%20%C3%A8%20nemico%20del%20bene%22#v=onepage, p. 45 https://books.google.com/books?id=IRPam75-SI4C&pg=RA1-PT45&q=%22Il%20meglio%20%C3%A8%20nemico%20del%20bene%22#v=onepage) Voltaire cites this saying in his poem "La Bégueule" ("The prude woman") while ascribing it to an unnamed "Italian sage"; he also gives the saying (without attribution) in Italian (Il meglio è l'inimico del bene [note spelling difference: l'inimico instead of nemico for "[the] enemy") in the article "Art Dramatique" ("Dramatic Art", 1770) in the Dictionnaire philosophique Citas

“The great enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but the good which is not good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best.”

Oswald Chambers book My Utmost for His Highest

Source: My Utmost for His Highest

“There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

Quoted by Granville Hicks in The Living Novel: A Symposium (Macmillan, 1957; digitized version in 2006), p. ix
General sources

“The final level - of good ethics - is to deal with your enemy in the best kind of treatment as though he is a close friend!”

Mohammed Alkobaisi (1970) Iraqi Islamic scholar

Understanding Islam, "Morals and Ethics" http://vod.dmi.ae/media/96716/Ep_03_Morals_and_Ethics Dubai Media

“Your Worst Enemy Could Be Your Best Friend && Your Best Friend Your Worst Enemy”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

“That which is good for the enemy harms you, and that which is good for you harms the enemy.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Art of War

Quello che giova al nimico nuoce a te, e quel che giova a te nuoce al nimico. Rule 1 from Machiavelli's Lord Fabrizio Colonna: libro settimo (Book 7) http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101013672561;view=1up;seq=176 (Modern Italian uses nemico instead of nimico.) The Art of War (1520)

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend, so that makes Google my best friend.”

Marc Benioff (1964) American businessman

Quoted in Miguel Helft, " Google and Salesforce Join to Fight Microsoft http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/technology/14google.html?_r=1&oref=slogin", New York Times (April 14, 2008).

“Good is the enemy of great. That good is the enemy of great is not just a business problem. It is a human problem”

James C. Collins (1958) American business consultant and writer

As cited in: Margaret A. Byrnes, ‎Jeanne Baxter (2006), The Principal's Leadership Counts!. p. 99
Good To Great And The Social Sectors, 2005

“Political criticism is our enemies' best friend.”

Bernard Kerik (1955) American police chief

Newsday, October 20, 2003

“Since my world picture approximates reality only crudely, I cannot aspire to optimize anything; at most, I can aim at satisficing. Searching for the best can only dissipate scarce cognitive resources; the best is the enemy of the good.”

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

p.361
Source: 1980s and later, Models of my life, 1991, p. 361; As cited in Ronald J. Baker (2010) Implementing Value Pricing: A Revolutionary Business Model for Professional Firms. p. 122.

“The best is the enemy of the good.”

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Bjarne Stroustrup30

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