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Diane Abbott photo

“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)
2010s, 2015

Stephen Fry photo

“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.
Quoted in Pink News http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-12560.html
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.'
2000s

Matt Mullenweg photo

“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)

Edward Young photo

“Less base the fear of death than fear of life.”

Edward Young Night-Thoughts

Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night V, Line 441.

Livy photo

“It is easier to criticize than to correct our past errors.”

Livy (-59–17 BC) Roman historian

Book XXX, sec. 30
History of Rome

Thomas Kyd photo

“Evil news fly faster still than good.”

Thomas Kyd book The Spanish Tragedy

Act I, sc. iii
The Spanish Tragedy (1592)

Horace Walpole photo

“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)

Li Yundi photo

“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

Robert Jordan photo

“Better ten days of love than years of regretting.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Min Farshaw
(15 October 1991)

Alice Evans photo

“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.

Euripidés photo

“Nothing has more strength than dire necessity.”

Euripidés Helen

Helen (412 BC), as translated by Richmond Lattimore

“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).

Dante Alighieri photo

“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

William Kristol photo

“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)
2010s, 2018

Lydia Maria Child photo

“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

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photo

“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)

Henry James photo

“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.

Arthur C. Clarke photo

“It is later than you think. May it not be true for this Sundial.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

Inscription for a Sundial at the University of Moratuwa Sri Lanka (1996) http://www.ent.mrt.ac.lk/~rohan/career/projects/sundial/sundial.html
1990s