“The touch of time does more than the club of Hercules.”
James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) American author
Horvendile, in Ch. 13 : What a Boy Thought
The Way of Ecben (1929)
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Quotes
“On balance Mao did more good than harm.”
Diane Abbott (1953) British Labour Party politician
On BBC One's This Week during a debate over who was the history's worst dictator. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/11/27/diane-abbott-said-on-balance-mao-did-more-good-than-harm_n_8660910.html (27/11/2015) <br class="br">2010s, 2015
“There’s nothing worse than the British in one of their fits of morality.”
Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist
On the expenses scandal in the UK. <br class="br">Quoted in Pink News http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-12560.html <br class="br">This is a variation on a line from Lord Macaulay's 'On Moore's Life of Lord Byron' (1830): 'We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.' <br class="br">2000s
“We are much better at writing code than haiku.”
Matt Mullenweg (1984) American entrepreneur
http://automattic.com/ Automattic Home Page
“It treated the individual as complementary to the machine rather than as an extension of it”
Eric Trist (1909–1993) British scientist
Jordan, 1963
The evolution of socio-technical systems, (1981)
“Less base the fear of death than fear of life.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night V, Line 441.
“It is easier to criticize than to correct our past errors.”
Livy (-59–17 BC) Roman historian
Book XXX, sec. 30
History of Rome
“Evil news fly faster still than good.”
Thomas Kyd book The Spanish Tragedy
Act I, sc. iii
The Spanish Tragedy (1592)
“It was easier to conquer it [the East] than to know what to do with it.”
Horace Walpole (1717–1797) English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician
Letter to Sir Horace Mann (27 March 1772)
“It’s easier to speak through the keys than through words.”
Li Yundi (1982) Chinese pianist
telegraph.co.uk http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/10863146/Lang-Lang-Weve-never-met.html
“Better ten days of love than years of regretting.”
Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer
Min Farshaw
(15 October 1991)
“I'd rather have Prada shoes than eat.”
Alice Evans (1971) British actress
"She may have lost a Picasso..." The Daily Express, 15 January 2001.
“I liked being the screwer rather than the screwee.”
George Alec Effinger book A Fire in the Sun
Source: A Fire in the Sun (1989), Chapter 20 (p. 280).
“There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery.”
Dante Alighieri book Inferno
Canto V, lines 121–123 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno
“I’d rather fight than switch. It’s worth fighting.”
William Kristol (1952) American writer
Twitter post https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/1038771343918096385 (9 September 2018) <br class="br">2010s, 2018
“The United States is…a warning rather than an example to the world.”
Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) American abolitionist, author and women's rights activist
To the twenty-fifth-anniversary meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society (1857)
1850s
“Poetry is nothing less than an aspiration to absolute truth.”
Dennis O'Driscoll (1954–2012) Irish poet, critic
Interview wiyh Kieran Owens ' The Event Guide' December 2002
Other Quotes
“There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet
Inferno, canto v, line 121.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“There's no more usual basis of union than a mutual misunderstanding.”
Henry James book The Portrait of a Lady
Source: The Portrait of a Lady (1881), Ch. XV.