““I have heard it said it is often safer to dwell in the lion’s lair than outside it,” Oladahn said.
“Safer still to live in a land where there are no lions,” Count Brass retorted.”
Book 1, Chapter 9 “Interlude at Castle Brass” (p. 291)
The Sword of the Dawn (1968)
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Michael Moorcock 224
English writer, editor, critic 1939Related quotes

“Lysander said, "Where the lion's skin will not reach, it must be pieced with the fox's."”
60 Lysander
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders
Source: A Severe Mercy: A Story of Faith, Tragedy and Triumph
Bombastes Furioso (1810), Act i, scene 4, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
As quoted in The Golden Treasury of Thought: A gathering of quotations from the best ancient and modern authors (1873) edited by John Camden Hotten.

The Life and Adventures of http://books.google.com/books?id=IZ9CAAAAYAAJ&q=%22better+to+have+a+Lyon+at+the+Head%22+%22an+Army+of+Sheep+than+a+Sheep+at+the+Head%22+%22an+Army+of+Lyons%22&pg=PA33#v=onepage Mrs. Christian Davies (1741)

“Better a live donkey than a dead lion.”
Quoted in [Moss, Stephen, Captain Scott centenary: Storm rages around polar explorer's reputation, The Guardian, 28 March 2012, http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/mar/28/captain-scott-antarctic-centenary-profile]
“Better a live dog than a dead lion.”
Più tosto can vivo che leone morto.
Della Morte, p. 525.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 394.

“A living dog is better than a dead lion.”
Walden (1854)
Context: A living dog is better than a dead lion. Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made. Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.<!--pp.366-367