Book I, Ch. 30. Of Cannibals
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”
“A well-fought defeat is worth more than a casual victory.”
Una derrota peleada vale más que una victoria casual.
100 Masones Su Palabra (2010)
“The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.”
Speech in the House of Commons, November 11, 1942 Debate on the address http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1942/nov/11/debate-on-the-address#column_39.
The Second World War (1939–1945)
“Courage is more important than to be deceived by shallow victory waiting for a delayed defeat.”
Reality http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/reality-168/
From the poems written in English
Source: The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights
Source: Of Human Bondage (1915), Ch. 122
“An honorable defeat is better than a dishonorable victory.”
Speech http://books.google.com/books?id=Ihs8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA407&dq=honorable+defeat (13 September 1844), Buffalo, New York, quoted in the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser (14 September 1844). Fillmore had lost the Whig nomination for governor of New York. The newspaper summary was: "He entreated them to enter the contest with zeal and enthusiasm; but as they valued the sacredness of their cause, and the stability of their principles, to resort to no unfair means: that an honorable defeat was better than a dishonorable victory."
1840s
“Triumphant where it dares defy,
And making Death a Victory.”
III.
Prometheus (1816)
Context: Thy Godlike crime was to be kind,
To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen Man with his own mind;
But baffled as thou wert from high,
Still in thy patient energy,
In the endurance, and repulse
Of thine impenetrable Spirit,
Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse,
A mighty lesson we inherit:
Thou art a symbol and a sign
To Mortals of their fate and force;
Like thee, Man is in part divine,
A troubled stream from a pure source;
And Man in portions can foresee
His own funereal destiny;
His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence:
To which his Spirit may oppose
Itself — and equal to all woes,
And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can decry
Its own concenter'd recompense,
Triumphant where it dares defy,
And making Death a Victory.
“To be defeated and not submit, is victory; to be victorious and rest on one's laurels, is defeat.”
(Late 1920s or the 1930s) Zbigniew Brzezinski in his introduction to Wacław Jędrzejewicz’s Piłsudski: A Life For Poland. Quoted from this website http://members.lycos.co.uk/jozefpilsudski/index2.html
Attributed
