If the best minds in the world had set out to find us the worst possible location in the world to fight this damnable war, politically and militarily, the unanimous choice would have been Korea. Adams

-Acheson, Dean Gooderham
On the Korean War. Quoted in  Joseph Goulden Korea (1992).

I am bound by my own definition of criticism: a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.

-Arnold, Matthew
  Essays in Criticism First Series,'The Function of Criticism at the Present Time'.

Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.

-Arnold, Matthew
  Literature and Dogma, preface.

Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best.

-Beerbohm, Sir (Henry) Max(imilian)
Quoted in S N Behrman Conversations with Max (1960), but also attributed elsewhere to  Jean Giraudoux and W Somerset Maugham.

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith,'A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: See all nor be afraid!'

-Browning, Robert
  Dramatis Personae,'Rabbi ben Ezra', stanza1.

Good, to forgive; Best, to forget! Living, we fret; Dying, we live.

-Browning, Robert
  La Saisiaz, prologue.

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.

-Cabell,James Branch
  The Silver Stallion, bk.4, ch.26.

Why not the best?

-Carter,Jimmy (James Earl)
  Presidential campaign slogan.

Prose = words in their best order;öpoetry = the best words in the best order.

-Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
  Table Talk (published1835), entry for12  Jul.

'It's always best on these occasions to do what the mob do.' 'But suppose there are two mobs?'suggested Mr Snodgrass.'Shout with the largest,'replied Mr Pickwick.

-Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam
^7  Pickwick Papers, ch.13.

Experience shows that great enterprises seldom end with a tidy and satisfactory flourish. Together, we are doingourbesttore-establishpeaceand civil order inthe Gulf region, and to help those members of civil and ethnic minorities who continuetosuffer through no fault oftheirown.If wesucceed,ourmilitarysuccesswill have achieved its true objective.

-Elizabeth II
  Commenting on the aftermath of the Gulf  War in the first address by a British monarch to Congress,16 May.

But as to risings, I can tell you why. It is on contradiction that they grow. It seemed the best thing to be up and go. Up was the heartening and the strong reply. The heart of standing is we cannot fly.

-Empson, Sir William
  'Aubade'.

Mother Knows Best.

-Ferber, Edna
   Title of story.

The English, the English, the English are best! I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest!

-Flanagan, Bud stage name of Robert Winthrop
  'Song of Patriotic Prejudice'.

   Only two classes of books are of universal appeal. The very best and the very worst.

-Ford, Ford Madox originally Ford Hermann Hueffer
  Joseph Conrad,  a Personal Remembrance, pt.1.

What America does best is to understand itself.What it does worst is to understand others.

-Fuentes, Carlos
  In Time,16  Jun.

Of course in nature the only ending is death, but death hardly ever happens when people are at their best. That is why we like tragedies. They show men energetically with their wits about them and deserving to do it.

-Gray, AlasdairJames
Lanark, bk.1, interlude.

He serves his party best who serves his country best.

-Hayes,J Milton
  Inaugural address, 5 Mar.

Best thing in eird,I say for me, Is merry hart with small possessioun.

-Henryson, Robert
c.1470  Moral Fables,'The Two Mice', l.387^8.

Farewell, sweet phrases, lovely metaphors: But will ye leave me thus? when ye before Of stews and brothels only knew the doors, Then did I wash you with my tears, and more, Brought you to church well-dressed and clad: My God must have my best, even all I had.

-Herbert, George
'The Forerunners', collected in The Temple, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (published posthumously,1633).