Antisthenes (-444–-365 BC) Greek philosopher
§ 5
From Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius
“A few honest men are better than numbers.”
Letter to Sir William Spring (September 1643)
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Oliver Cromwell49
English military and political leader 1599–1658Related quotes
“It is infinitely better to have a few good men than many indifferent ones.”
George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States
Letter to James McHenry (10 August 1798)
1790s
Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist
“Wave Mechanics,” p. 75
On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God (1968)
“More rogues than honest men find shelter under habeas corpus”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1820s Gold treasure United States, 1860s
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
The Great Infidels (1881)
Context: The greatest men the world has produced have known but little. They had a few facts, mingled with mistakes without number. In some departments they towered above their fellows, while in others they fell below the common level of mankind.
Thomas Hodgskin (1787–1869) British writer
Source: Travels in the North of Germany (1820), p. 292, Vol. 1
“A great deal of love given to a few is better than a little to many.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America
“Do you esteem men by their number rather than by their valour and prowess?”
Francois Rabelais book Gargantua and Pantagruel
Source: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Gargantua (1534), Chapter 43.
Context: Being come down from thence towards Seville, they were heard by Gargantua, who said then unto those that were with him, Comrades and fellow-soldiers, we have here met with an encounter, and they are ten times in number more than we. Shall we charge them or no? What a devil, said the monk, shall we do else? Do you esteem men by their number rather than by their valour and prowess? With this he cried out, Charge, devils, charge! Which when the enemies heard, they thought certainly that they had been very devils, and therefore even then began all of them to run away as hard as they could drive, Drawforth only excepted, who immediately settled his lance on its rest, and therewith hit the monk with all his force on the very middle of his breast, but, coming against his horrific frock, the point of the iron being with the blow either broke off or blunted, it was in matter of execution as if you had struck against an anvil with a little wax-candle.