Source: Guilty Pleasures
“Nothing, they say is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the time of dying”
“Nothing is more certain than death and nothing uncertain but its hour.”
Enguerrand VII de Coucy, quoted on p. 570
A Distant Mirror (1978)
Source: The Doctrine of the Mean
“The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.”
The Fair Haven http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/fhvn10h.htm, Memoir of the Late John Pickard Owen, Ch. 3 (1873)
Variant: It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.
Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 6
Context: It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)
Source: Book 1, Chapter 4 (p. 509)
“It is a rare man who notices a handsome woman.”
Source: Drenai series, The King Beyond the Gate, Ch. 22
"The Contest in America," Fraser’s Magazine (February 1862); later published in Dissertations and Discussions (1868), vol.1 p. 26
Context: War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.
