“Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure
I’d face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.”

“What call ye them or Goods or Ills, ill-goods, good-ills, a loss, a gain,
When realms arise and falls a roof; a world is won, a man is slain?”

Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, lin…

“For the world is impure and envious of the able,
And eager to hide men's good and make much of their ill.”

Qu Yuan (-343–-278 BC) ancient Chinese poet

“Ill repute is a good thing and much the same as pain.”

Antisthenes (-444–-365 BC) Greek philosopher

“As nought good endures beneath the skies,
So ill endures no more.”

Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso

“354. He that hath no ill fortune is troubled with good.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

“Such are the vicissitudes of our mortal lot: misfortune is born of prosperity, and good fortune of ill-luck.”
Habet has vices conditio mortalium, ut adversa ex secundis, ex adversis secunda nascantur.

Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer

“To do good is noble. To tell others to do good is even nobler and much less trouble.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“If we are not stupid or insincere when we say that the good or ill of man lies within his own will, and that all beside is nothing to us, why are we still troubled?”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

“An ill wind that blows no man to good.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs