
“The highest form of vanity is love of fame.”
The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905-1906), Vol. II, Reason in Society
Source: Ficciones
“The highest form of vanity is love of fame.”
The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905-1906), Vol. II, Reason in Society
“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
Speech in the House of Commons (11 November 1947), published in 206–07 The Official Report, House of Commons (5th Series), 11 November 1947, vol. 444, cc. http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1947/nov/11/parliament-bill#column_206
Post-war years (1945–1955)
Variant: Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried.
Context: Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
“The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.”
Whilst a paraphrase this is based off of Aristotle's writings as Aristotle stated "For instance, it is thought that justice is equality, and so it is, though not for everybody but only for those who are equals; and it is thought that inequality is just, for so indeed it is, though not for everybody, but for those who are unequal" in https://www.loebclassics.com/view/aristotle-politics/1932/pb_LCL264.211.xml Politics, III. V. 8.
Misattributed
This first appears in 1974 in an explanation of Aristotle's politics in Time magazine, before being condensed to an epigram as "Aristotle's Axiom" in Peter's People (1979) by Laurence J. Peter
“Aristotle's axiom: The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.”
Source: Peter's People and Their Marvelous Ideas
Quote of El Greco, 1582-84; as cited by Marina Lambraki-Plaka, in El Greco, p. 57-59; as quoted in Wikipedia/El Greco: 'Technique and Style'
on making his painting 'The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception' https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/El_Greco_-_The_Virgin_of_the_Immaculate_Conception_-_WGA10585.jpg El Greco asked permission to lengthen the altarpiece itself by another 1.5 feet (0.46 m) - the human body became even more otherworldly in his later works
Cited in: Robert Horvitz, 'a node for jack burnham' https://horvitz.multiplace.org/burnham/homepage.html.
Beyond Modern Sculpture, 1968
“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.”
Source: 1930s, The Conquest of Happiness (1930)
“There was hope in him, and soon perhaps the outline of his journey would take form.”
Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter