“I would much rather have been merry than wise.”

—  Jane Austen , book Emma

Source: Emma

Last update May 21, 2020. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I would much rather have been merry than wise." by Jane Austen?
Jane Austen photo
Jane Austen 477
English novelist 1775–1817

Related quotes

Jane Austen photo
Cato the Elder photo

“I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue, than why I have one.”

Cato the Elder (-234–-149 BC) politician, writer and economist (0234-0149)

Attributed to Cato in Plutarch, Parallel Lives 19:4 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0013%3Achapter%3D19.
Original Greek: ‘μᾶλλον γὰρ,’ ἔφη, ‘βούλομαι ζητεῖσθαι, διὰ τί μου ἀνδριὰς οὐ κεῖται ἢ διὰ τί κεῖται’

Charlotte Brontë photo

“I would much rather have a living husband with no job and no gold than a dead one.”

Nick Drake (poet) (1961) British writer

ibid
The Rahotep series, Book 3: Egypt: The Book of Chaos (2011)

Voltairine de Cleyre photo

“I would rather, much rather, be illegitimate according to the statutes of men, than illegitimate according to the unchanging law of Nature.”

Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) American anarchist writer and feminist

Sex Slavery (1890)
Context: O height and depth of purity, which fears so much that the children will not know who their fathers are, because, forsooth, they must rely upon their mother's word instead of the hired certification of some priest of the Church, or the Law! I wonder if the children would be improved to know what their fathers have done. I would rather, much rather, not know who my father was than know he had been a tyrant to my mother. I would rather, much rather, be illegitimate according to the statutes of men, than illegitimate according to the unchanging law of Nature.

Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes; I would rather have lived in a hut, with a vine growing over the door and the grapes growing and ripening in the autumn sun; I would rather have been that peasant, with my wife by my side and my children upon my knees, twining their arms of affection about me; I would rather have been that poor French peasant and gone down at last to the eternal promiscuity of the dust, followed by those who loved me; I would a thousand times rather have been that French peasant than that imperial personative of force and murder; and so I would —ten thousand thousand times.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Soliloquy at the tomb of Napoleon (1882); noted to have been misreported as "I would rather be the humblest peasant that ever lived … at peace with the world than be the greatest Christian that ever lived" by Billy Sunday (May 26, 1912), as reported in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 52-53.

Oliver Cromwell photo

“I would have been glad to have lived under my wood side, to have kept a flock of sheep, rather than undertook such a Government as this is.”

Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) English military and political leader

Statement to Parliament (4 February 1658) quoted in The Diary of Thomas Burton, esq., volume 2: April 1657 - February 1658 (1828), p. 466

“Paradox is thus a much deeper and universal concept than the ancients would have dreamed. Rather than an oddity, it is a mainstay of the philosophy of science.”

William Poundstone (1955) American writer

Source: Labyrinths of Reason (1988), Chapter 1: "Paradox", p. 23

Cornelius Keagon photo

“I would rather have no friends than fake friends”

Cornelius Keagon (1996) Liberian humanitarian aid worker

Source: https://www.academia.edu/57019490/Cornelius_Keagon_biography Academic.edu, Cornelius Keagon biography

Lin Yutang photo

“The world I believe is far too serious, and being far too serious, is it has need of a wise and merry philosophy.”

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 13