“The oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried.”

— Michel De Montaigne , book Essays

Book III, Ch. 9. Of Vanity
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried." by Michel De Montaigne?

Michel De Montaigne photo

Michel De Montaigne 264

(1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, … 1533–1592

Related quotes

“In times of storm and tempest, of indecision and desolation, a book already known and loved makes better reading than something new and untried… nothing is so warming and companionable.”

Elizabeth Goudge (1900–1984) English fiction writer

“The best known evil is the most tolerable.”
Notissimum [...] malum maxime tolerabile

Livy (-59–17 BC) Roman historian

Book XXIII, sec. 3
History of Rome
Variant: Those ills are easiest to bear with which we are most familiar.

“I seek new perfumes, ampler blossoms, untried pleasures.”

Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848–1907) French novelist and art critic

Source: Against Nature

“I am one of those who think like Nobel, that humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries.”

Marie Curie (1867–1934) French-Polish physicist and chemist

As quoted in White Coat Tales : Medicine's Heroes, Heritage and Misadventures‎ (2007) by Robert B. Taylor, p. 141. The original Source is the last sentence of https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1903/pierre-curie-lecture.pdf
Misattributed

“I paced up and down the little room, a queer thing happened. It was as though my wandering imagination came upon a new quality, different from all that I had ever known; yet one which was also more familiar and intimate than the smell of Plaxy in the mood of love, more piercing sweet than bitches, more hunt-worthy than the trail of a fox.”

Olaf Stapledon book Sirius

Sirius (1944)

“The New York Times "last month announced that the Syrian-supported Hizbollah resistance in Lebanon had 10,000 missiles that could fly to Tel Aviv and "leave in their wake devastation more terrible than anything Israel has ever known". The missiles are a myth – I travel the roads of southern Lebanon every two weeks and there are no such missiles, as the UN force there will confirm – but this doesn't matter.”

Robert Fisk (1946) English writer and journalist

Would President Assad invite a cruise missile to his palace? http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles230.htm, 15 April, 2003
2003

“If a government is to do great new things, it will need more support. If a government is to change the world, it will need mass support. This is one of the discoveries of modern government.”

Bernard Crick (1929–2008) British political theorist and democratic socialist

A Footnote To Rally The Academic, p. 179.
In Defence Of Politics (Second Edition) – 1981

“The world's oldest wisdom: each evil thought infuses the mind, sooner or later, with an unholy fear.”

Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian writer and guru

#106, Part 2
Twenty Seven Thousand Aspiration Plants Part 1-270 (1983)

“Everyone is more than one thing,” said Kieran. “We are more than single actions we undertake, whether they be good or evil.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

“Evil news fly faster still than good.”

Thomas Kyd book The Spanish Tragedy

Act I, sc. iii
The Spanish Tragedy (1592)

Related topics