Remark to Thomas Creevey (18 June 1815), using the word nice in an older sense of "uncertain, delicately balanced", about the Battle of Waterloo. Creevy, a civilian, got a public interview with Wellington at headquarters, and quoted the remark in his book Creevey Papers (1903), in Ch. X, on p. 236; the phrase "a damned nice thing" has sometimes been paraphrased as "a damn close-run thing."
Context: It has been a damned serious business... Blucher and I have lost 30,000 men. It has been a damned nice thing — the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life. … By God! I don't think it would have been done if I had not been there.
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) British soldier and statesman
Remark to Thomas Creevey (18 June 1815), using the word nice in an older sense of "uncertain, delicately balanced", about the Battle of Waterloo. Creevy, a civilian, got a public interview with Wellington at headquarters, and quoted the remark in his book Creevey Papers (1903), in Ch. X, on p. 236; the phrase "a damned nice thing" has sometimes been paraphrased as "a damn close-run thing."
“I'm the best damn thing that your eyes have ever seen.”
Avril Lavigne (1984) Canadian singer-songwriter and actress
"The Best Damn Thing" on The Best Damn Thing (2007)
John D. Barrow (1952–2020) British scientist
Source: The Book of Nothing (2009), chapter one "Zero—The Whole Story"
Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist
Letters to Guy Moyston, (August 25, 1924 and July 11, 1925).
Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist
Song lyrics, Knocked Out Loaded (1986), Brownsville Girl (with Sam Shepard)
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
“Meeting you has been the best thing that's ever happened to me. - John Tyree”
Nicholas Sparks book Dear John
Variant: In a lifetime of mistakes, you two are the greatest things that have ever happened to me.
Source: Dear John
“There are some things your mind has been hiding from you.”
Obert Skye book Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo
Source: Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo
