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“5465. Weeds are apt to grow faster than good Herbs.”
Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“There are few things easier than to live badly and to die well.”
Oscar Wilde Vera; or, The Nihilists
Vera; or, The Nihilists (1880)
“There are few more impressive sights in the world than a Scotsman on the make.”
J. M. Barrie What Every Woman Knows
Act II
What Every Woman Knows (1908)
“The advice of women, if spontaneous,
Is better than if pondered well, and weighed.”
Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso
Molti consigli de le donne sono
Meglio improviso, ch'a pensarvi, usciti.
Canto XXVII, stanza 1 (tr. B. Reynolds)
Orlando Furioso (1532)
“Perhaps misguided moral passion is better than confused indifference.”
Iris Murdoch book The Book and the Brotherhood
The Book and the Brotherhood (1987) p. 248.
“A novelist has more talent for written than oral assignments.”
Patrick Modiano (1945) French writer
From Nobel Lecture (2014)
“Yea, Custance, better (they say) a bad excuse than none.”
Nicholas Udall Ralph Roister Doister
Gawin Goodluck, Act V, sc. ii.
Ralph Roister Doister (c. 1553)
“The race of armaments is nothing less than a race to mutual suicide.”
Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman
What Does God Want Us to Do About Russia? (1948)
“I came no nearer sleep than I came to the moon.”
Samuel R. Delany book The Jewels of Aptor
Source: The Jewels of Aptor (1962), Chapter III (p. 29)
“A cup of kindness is better than a whole bottle of mercy can be.”
Avner Strauss (1954) Israeli musician
Song
“The peoples of Islam will always be closer to us than, for example, France.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party
2 April 1945.
Disputed, The Testament of Adolf Hitler (1945)
“Longer than a winter's night for a man who is ill-wed.”
Luis de Góngora (1561–1627) Spanish Baroque lyric poet
Más largo
que una noche de Diciembre
para un hombre mal casado.
"Murmuraban los rocines", line 94, cited from Poesias de D. Luis de Gongora y Argote (Madrid: Imprenta Nacional, 1820) p. 83. Translation from Henry Baerlein The House of the Fighting-cocks (London: Leonard Parsons, 1922) p. 92.
“5711. Who more busy than they that have least to do?”
Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is.”
W. Somerset Maugham book Ten Novels and Their Authors
Ten Novels and Their Authors (1954)
“Life is much more of a compromise than I ever imagined.”
Mark Heard (1951–1992) American musician and record producer
Life in the Industry: A Musician's Diary
“The value and rank of a learned man is more than his knowledge.”
Ali al-Hadi (829–868) imam
Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 3.
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, Religious
“To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.”
Steve Prefontaine (1951–1975) United States long-distance runner
Tom Jordan, Pre: Americas Greatest Running Legend, Steve Prefontaine, ISBN 0875964575
“Peace hath her victories
No less renowned than war.”
John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet
To the Lord General Cromwell (1652)
Quoted by President Benjamin Harrison in his dedication of the Chicago Auditorium, and thereafter inscribed on the building, as reported in Dr. William Carter, "Progress in World's Peace Movement", California Outlook (1913), Vol. 14, p. 11
“Missing her kept him awake more than the coffee.”
John Green book An Abundance of Katherines
Colin Singleton, p. 15
An Abundance of Katherines (2006)