“In politics, being ridiculous is more damaging than being extreme.”
Roy Hattersley (1932) British Labour Party politician, published author and journalist
Evening Standard, 9 May 1989
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Quotes
“In war, character and opinion make more than half of the reality.”
Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French
Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)
“For simple light is perhaps still more beautiful than colors.”
Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist
“In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia
The Russian Revolution (1930)
“The peculiar characteristic of classical music is that it is really better than it sounds.”
Edgar Wilson Nye (1850–1896) American journalist, who later became widely known as a humorist
A stand-up line quoted in 1888.
Attributed
Variant: Wagner's music is better than it sounds (attested in an obituary; see The Quote Verifier)
“Be rather delighted with those that reprove, than with those that flatter you.”
Stobaeus Ancient Greek anthologist
29
Pythagorean Ethical Sentences
“It is more easy to get a favor from Fortune than to keep it.”
Fortunam citius reperias quam retineas.
Publilio Siro Latin writer
Maxim 282
Sentences
“There probably is a God. Many things are easier to explain if there is than if there isn't.”
John Von Neumann (1903–1957) Hungarian-American mathematician and polymath
As quoted in John Von Neumann : The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered the Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence and Much More (1992) by Norman Macrae, p. 379
“A man’s dying is more the survivors’ affair than his own.”
Thomas Mann book The Magic Mountain
Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 6
“Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Source: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 1: Mysticism and Logic
“I am no more humble than my talents require.”
Oscar Levant (1906–1972) American comedian, composer, pianist and actor
As quoted in Memorable Quotations: Jewish Writers of the Past (2005) edited by Carol A. Dingle.
“Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.”
John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century
To the Pious Memory of Mrs. Anne Killegrew (1686), line 70.
“It is better to limp in the way, than run with the greatest swiftness out of it.”
John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion
Book 1, Chapter 6, p. 72
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)
“In all the broad Universe there is no other hope for Man than ourselves.”
L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology
"Ron's Journal" (1967).
“It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing.”
Satius est supervacua scire quam nihil.
Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist
Source: Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXXVIII: On liberal and vocational studies, Line 45.
“Reality is much more absurd and complex than any fiction.”
Yan Lianke (1958) Chinese novelist and satirist
"China on China, Culture for Billions" Documentary
“More people are flattered into virtue than bullied out of vice.”
Robert Smith Surtees (1805–1864) English writer
The Analysis of the Hunting Field (1846) ch. 1
“That's American English for you: more roots than a mangrove swamp.”
Roy Blount Jr. (1941) American writer
Alphabet Juice (2008), p. 359.