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“The manner of giving is worth more than the gift.”

Pierre Corneille The Liar

La façon de donner vaut mieux que ce qu'on donne.
Cliton, act I, scene i.
Le Menteur (The Liar) (1643)

“There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 73 (24 May 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

“An acre in Middlesex is better than a principality in Utopia.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

On Lord Bacon

“Lighter than a cork I danced on the waves.”

Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) French Decadent and Symbolist poet

Plus léger qu'un bouchon j'ai dansé sur les flots. St. 4 Le Bateau Ivre http://www.mag4.net/Rimbaud/poesies/Boat.html (The Drunken Boat) (1871)

“The future is arriving sooner than we imagine.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Facebook Nation: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2014

“Better to suffer than to die: that is mankind's motto.”

Jean De La Fontaine (1621–1695) French poet, fabulist and writer.

Plutôt souffrir que mourir,
C'est la devise des hommes.
Book I (1668), fable 16.
Fables (1668–1679)
Variant: Rather suffer than die is man's motto.

“Duty was simply not enough. There had to be more than that!”

Sheri S. Tepper book Grass

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 20 (p. 446)

“Active Evil is better than Passive Good.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

1780s, Annotations to Lavater (1788)

“It's more fun to be a pirate than to join the Navy.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

At a retreat in September 1982, as quoted in John Sculley and John A. Byrne, Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple – A Journey of Adventure, Ideas, and the Future (1987), p. 157
As quoted or paraphrased in Young Guns: The Fearless Entrepreneur's Guide to Chasing Your Dreams and Breaking Out on Your Own (2009) by Robert Tuchman, p. 18
1980s
Variant: Why join the Navy . . . if you can be a pirate?

“People must not be wiser than the experience of mankind.”

Charles Bowen (1835–1894) English judge

Filburn v. People's Palace and Aquarium Co. (1890), L. R. 25 Q. B. 261.

“It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.”

Grace Hopper (1906–1992) American computer scientist and United States Navy officer

As quoted in the U.S. Navy's Chips Ahoy magazine (July 1986) As quoted in Built to Learn: The Inside Story of How Rockwell Collins Became a True Learning Organization (2003) by Cliff Purington, Chris Butler, and Sarah Fister Gale, p. 171 The future: Hardware, Software, and People in Carver https://books.google.com/books?id=5Q7uAAAAMAAJ, 1983 Actually attested since mid-19th century. Variant: If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission. Variant: That brings me to the most important piece of advice that I can give to all of you: if you've got a good idea, and it's a contribution, I want you to go ahead and DO IT. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission. Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/06/19/forgive/