The Art of Poetry on a New Plan (1761), vol. ii. p. 147.
The saying "he who fights and runs away may live to fight another day" dates at least as far back as Menander (ca. 341–290 B.C.), Gnomai Monostichoi, aphorism #45: ἀνήρ ὁ ϕɛύγων καὶ ράλίν μαχήɛṯαί (a man who flees will fight again). The Attic Nights (book 17, ch. 21) of Aulus Gellius (ca. 125–180 A.D.) indicates it was already widespread in the second century: "...the orator Demosthenes sought safety in flight from the battlefield, and when he was bitterly taunted with his flight, he jestingly replied in the well-known verse: The man who runs away will fight again".
“The man who runs may fight again.”
Variant translation: The man who runs away will fight again.
Monosticha.
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Menander 18
Athenian playwright of New Comedy -342–-291 BCRelated quotes
“A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run.”
Speech at the Labour Party conference (5 October 1960) in opposition to a motion endorsing unilateral nuclear disarmament.
“He who flees will fight again.”
Qui fugiebat, rursus sibi proeliabitur.
De Fuga in Persecutione, 10
“For those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that's slain.”
Canto III, line 243
Source: Hudibras, Part III (1678)
It tells of his twilight, when the great battles were over and the great miracles long since performed; of how his enemies conspired against him and of that final war in the snowblind wastes beneath the Northern Lights; of the women he loved and of the choice he made between them; of how he broke his most sacred oath, and how finally all the things he had were taken from him save one. It ends with a wink. It begins in a quiet midwestern town, one summer afternoon in the quiet midwestern future. Away in the big city, people still sometimes glance up hopefully from the sidewalks, glimpsing a distant speck in the sky... but no: it's only a bird, only a plane — Superman died ten years ago. This is an imaginary story... aren't they all?
Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? (1986)
Light (1919), Ch. XVI - De Profundis Clamavi
Context: War will come again after this one. It will come again as long as it can be determined by people other than those who fight. The same causes will produce the same effects, and the living will have to give up all hope.
“I can’t stand it, run it again! Huddle up and run it again, Brady!”
Running an offensive drill during 2000 New England Patriots training camp with rookie quarterback Tom Brady.
“Then why did you run? A man who runs needs no other accusation.”
“Is that so? Really?” cried Steen. “Well, I would run out of a burning building even if I had not set the fire myself.”
Source: Empire novels (1950–1952), The Currents of Space (1952), Chapter 16 “The Accused” (p. 163)