“It is easier to destroy knowledge, Ignosi, than to gather it.”
Source: King Solomon's Mines (1885), Chapter 15, "Good Falls Sick"
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Quotes
“Better a debauched canary than a pious wolf.”
Anton Chekhov
(1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician
Innocuous Thoughts (1885)
“The byproduct is sometimes more valuable than the product.”
H. Havelock Ellis
(1859–1939) British physician, writer, and social reformer
Source: Little Essays of Love and Virtue http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15687/15687-h/15687-h.htm (1922), Ch. 3
“A good sketch is better than a long speech.”
Napoleon I of France
(1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French
Un bon croquis vaut mieux qu'un long discours.
Quoted in L'Arche de Noé (1968) by Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, p. 48; this has sometimes also been translated as "A picture is worth a thousand words", though it is not known to be the origin of that English expression.
Attributed
“Better to doubt methodically than to think capriciously.”
Stanley Baldwin
(1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Speech at his inauguration as Lord Rector of The University of Edinburgh (6 November 1925), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), p. 83.
1925
“It is much easier to settle a point than to act on it.”
Richard Cecil (clergyman)
(1748–1810) British Evangelical Anglican priest and social reformer
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 4.
“A little doubt is better than total credulity.”
Al-Maʿarri
(973–1057) Medieval Arab philosopher
As quoted in Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out (2003) by Ibn Warraq, p. 68
“There is nothing better or more necessary than love.”
John of the Cross
(1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint
Note to Stanza 28 part 1
Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom, Notes to the Stanzas
“Silence more musical than any song.”
Christina Rossetti
(1830–1894) English poet
Sonnet. Rest; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism.”
Denis Diderot
(1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist
Pensées Philosophiques (1746)
“St. Louis is closer to Minneapolis than Milwaukee is.”
Bud Selig
(1934) American baseball executive
“The minotaur more than justifies the existence of the labyrinth.”
Jorge Luis Borges
(1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature
"Ibn-Hakim Al-Bokhari, Murdered in His Labyrinth", in The Aleph (1949); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
“Better to try understanding the sun than a woman.”
Robert Jordan
(1948–2007) American writer
Thom Merrilin
(15 October 1993)
“There is no more ethical group on this planet than ourselves.”
L. Ron Hubbard
(1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology
Scientology Policy Letters
“Bacon tastes better than skinny feels.”
Morgan Murphy (food critic)
(1972) Southern writer
Source: <i>Bourbon & Bacon</i> (2014), p. 161
“Beauty is nothing other than the promise of happiness.”
Stendhal
(1783–1842) French writer
La beauté n'est que la promesse du bonheur.
Source: De L'Amour (On Love) (1822), Ch. 17, footnote
“1781. Half a Loaf is better than no Bread.”
Thomas Fuller (writer)
(1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“My brain was slower than my mouth.”
Paul LePage
(1948) American businessman, Republican Party politician, and the 74th Governor of Maine
As quoted by The Times. http://time.com/4172603/paul-lepage-chris-christie-maine-2016-election/ (January 8, 2016)
“Men are slower to recognise blessings than misfortunes.”
Livy
(-59–17 BC) Roman historian
Book XXX, sec. 21
History of Rome