What rage for fame attends both great and small!

Better be damned than mentioned not at all.

John Wolcot (1738-1819): To the Royal Academicians.

Better be with the dead,

Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,

Than on the torture of the mind to lie

In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;

After life's fitful fever he sleeps well:

Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,

Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,

Can touch him further.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 2.

He hath indeed better bettered expectation.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Much Ado about Nothing. Act i. Sc. 1.

The better day, the better deed.

Thomas Middleton (1580-1627): The Phoenix. Act iii. Sc. 1.

Under the shade of melancholy boughs,

Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time;

If ever you have look'd on better days,

If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church,

If ever sat at any good man's feast.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.

Green be the turf above thee,

Friend of my better days!

None knew thee but to love thee,

Nor named thee but to praise.

Alfred Bunn (1790-1860): On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake.

We have seen better days.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Timon of Athens. Act iv. Sc. 2.

I said, an elder soldier, not a better:

Did I say "better"?

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Julius Caesar. Act iv. Sc. 3.

I said, an elder soldier, not a better:

Did I say "better"?

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Julius Caesar. Act iv. Sc. 3.

Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): Locksley Hall. Line 184.

Make haste; the better foot before.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King John. Act iv. Sc. 2.

They say, best men are moulded out of faults,

And, for the most, become much more the better

For being a little bad.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Measure for Measure. Act v. Sc. 1.

May I govern my passion with absolute sway,

And grow wiser and better as my strength wears away.

Walter Pope (1630-1714): The Old Man's Wish.

And better had they ne'er been born,

Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): The Monastery. Chap. xii.

The grey mare is the better horse.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. iv.

Better is halfe a lofe than no bread.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.

Better is to bow then breake.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. ix.

Better late than never.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.

Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Twelfth Night. Act iii. Sc. 1.

The good are better made by ill,

As odours crushed are sweeter still.

Samuel Rogers (1763-1855): Jacqueline. Stanza 3.

They say, best men are moulded out of faults,

And, for the most, become much more the better

For being a little bad.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Measure for Measure. Act v. Sc. 1.

The better part of valour is discretion.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.

And may you better reck the rede,

Than ever did the adviser!

Robert Burns (1759-1796): Epistle to a Young Friend.

I could have better spared a better man.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.

I do desire we may be better strangers.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): As You Like It. Act iii. Sc. 2.

Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Lear. Act i. Sc. 4.

The hand that rounded Peter's dome,

And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,

Wrought in a sad sincerity;

Himself from God he could not free;

He builded better than he knew:

The conscious stone to beauty grew.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): The Problem.

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,

Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): Locksley Hall. Line 49.

No better than you should be.

Beaumont And Fletcher: The Coxcomb. Act iv. Sc. 3.

But all was false and hollow; though his tongue

Dropp'd manna, and could make the worse appear

The better reason, to perplex and dash

Maturest counsels.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 112.

'T is better to be lowly born,

And range with humble livers in content,

Than to be perked up in a glistering grief,

And wear a golden sorrow.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VIII. Act ii. Sc. 3.

I swear 't is better to be much abused

Than but to know 't a little.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.

'T is better to be vile than vile esteem'd,

When not to be receives reproach of being;

And the just pleasure lost which is so deem'd,

Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Sonnet cxxi.

Better to give then to take.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. v.

'T is better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): In Memoriam. xxvii. Stanza 4.

Better to hunt in fields for health unbought

Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.

The wise for cure on exercise depend;

God never made his work for man to mend.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Epistle to John Dryden of Chesterton. Line 92.

Better to love amiss than nothing to have loved.

George Crabbe (1754-1832): Tales. Tale xiv. The Struggles of Conscience.

Here we may reign secure; and in my choice

To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:

Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 261.

Better to sink beneath the shock

Than moulder piecemeal on the rock.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Giaour. Line 969.

Better trust all, and be deceived,

And weep that trust and that deceiving,

Than doubt one heart, that if believed

Had blessed one's life with true believing.

Wendell Phillips (1811-1884): Faith.

Hereafter, in a better world than this,

I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): As You Like It. Act i. Sc. 2.