
“Second thoughts, they say, are best.”
Act II, scene 2.
The Spanish Friar (1681)
Variant translations: Among mortals second thoughts are the wisest.
Second thoughts are ever wiser.
Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.
Source: Hippolytus (428 BC), l. 435, as translated by David Grene
“Second thoughts, they say, are best.”
Act II, scene 2.
The Spanish Friar (1681)
Quote of Rembrandt, recorded by his pupil Samuel van Hoogstraten, 1678 http://remdoc.huygens.knaw.nl/#/document/remdoc/e14113; as cited by W.Gs Hellinga, Rembrandt fecit 1642: de Nachtwacht, Gysbrecht van Aemstel', J.M. Meulenhoff, Amsterdam 1956, p. 4 (translation from the original Dutch: Anne Porcelijn)
Rembrandt is teaching his student Samuel van Hoogstraten (c. 1642), http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/hell014remb01_01/ according to W. Gs. Hellinga
1640 - 1670
quote from Honor Harrington (Take on Mark Twain's original quote)
"Honorverse", The Honor of the Queen (1993)
“The best bet is in yourself, the second best is in a cup of coffee.”
A Christmas Sermon (1890)
Context: I do not remember that one science is mentioned in the New Testament. There is not one word, so far as I remember, about education—nothing about any science, nothing about art. The writers of the New Testament seem to have thought that the world was about coming to an end. This world was to be sacrificed absolutely to the next. The affairs of this life were not worth speaking of. All people were exhorted to prepare at once for the other life.
“To their own second thoughts.”
Job 6.
Commentaries
“It is the best of all trades, to make songs, and the second best to sing them.”
"On Song", On Everything (1909)
“How good and thoughtful he is; the world seems full of good men--even if there are monsters in it.”
Variant: The world seems full of good men, even if there are monsters in it.
Source: Dracula