“It is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait for it to abolish itself from below.”
Alexander II of Russia (1818–1881) Emperor of Russia
Speech (30 March 1856), as quoted in A Concise History of Russia (1972) by Ronald Hingley\. p. 122.
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“It is better to be able neither to read nor write than to be able to do nothing else.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer
"On the Ignorance of the Learned" <br class="br"> Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)
“You think it more difficult to turn air into wine than to turn wine into blood?”
Graham Greene book Monsignor Quixote
On a priest who pantomimes Mass, Monsignor Quixote, PBS TV (February 13, 1987)
“Getting the right people in the right jobs is a lot more important than developing a strategy.”
Jack Welch (1935) American executive: General Electric CEO
Source: Jack: Straight from the Gut (2001), Ch. 24.
George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (1633–1695) English politician
The Lady's New Year's Gift: or Advice to a Daughter (1688)
“There is a certain kind of morality which is even more alien to good and evil than amorality is.”
Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist
“The responsibility of writers,” p. 169
On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God (1968)
“It is better not to express what one means than to express what one does not mean.”
Karl Kraus (1874–1936) Czech playwright and publicist
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)
Christian Homburg (1962) German academic
Christian Homburg, and Bettina Rudolph. "Customer satisfaction in industrial markets: dimensional and multiple role issues." Journal of Business Research 52.1 (2001): 15-33.
“We can love an honest rogue, but what is more offensive than a false saint?”
Jessamyn West (1902–1984) American author
To See the Dream, part 1 (1956)
“It is harder to hide the feelings we have than to feign the ones we do not have.”
François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs
Maxim 56 from the posthumously published 1693 edition of the Maximes.
Later Additions to the Maxims
“The illusion that times that were are better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages.”
Horace Greeley (1811–1872) American politician and publisher
As quoted in The American Conflict, A History of the Great Rebellion (1864).
1860s
“We are less than a decade away from the medical lab the size of a sugar cube.”
Philippe Kahn (1952) Entrepreneur, camera phone creator
Founding speech for Fullpower, 2003, focusing in particular on the power of MEMS and Nanotechnology and its applications to life sciences.
“The slender debt to Nature's quickly paid,
Discharged, perchance, with greater ease than made.”
Francis Quarles (1592–1644) English poet
Book II, no. 13. Compare: "To die is a debt we must all of us discharge", Euripides, Alcestis, line 418.
Emblems (1635)
“God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.”
Aurelius Augustinus book Enchiridion of Augustine
Enchiridion (c. 420 ), Ch. 27
“Today things are better than a year ago. But within a year things will be even better.”
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (1960) Former Prime Minister of Spain
Presidential press release on 29th December 2006, one day before an ETA bomb attack at Madrid airport, resulting in 2 deaths. <br class="br">As President, 2006 <br class="br">Source: el Mundo http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2006/12/29/espana/1167368963.html.
“Than a successive title long and dark,
Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's ark.”
John Dryden book The Hind and the Panther
Pt 1, line 301.
The Hind and the Panther (1687)