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".
“For those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that's slain.”
Canto III, line 243
Source: Hudibras, Part III (1678)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Samuel Butler (poet) 81
poet and satirist 1612–1680Related quotes
“I am sore wounded but not slain
I will lay me down and bleed a while
And then rise up to fight again”
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.
A Poet's Advice (1958)
Context: Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel …
the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.
To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
“The man who runs may fight again.”
Variant translation: The man who runs away will fight again.
Monosticha.
Assessments and Anticipations, "Prognostications" (1929)
Homily 2. Fifty Spiritual Homilies of Saint Macarius the Egyptian, trans. Arthur J. Mason.
Disputed
“Those who start wars never fight them, and those who fight wars never like them.”
Time to Go Home, Yell Fire! (2006)