Always to be best, and to be distinguished above the rest.

-Homer   8c
c.700  BC  Motto of the hero Glaucus. Iliad, bk.6, l.208 (translated by Martin Hammond.

Wisdom denotes the pursuing of the best ends by the best means.

-Hutcheson, Francis
  An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, treatise1, sect.5.

That action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers. See Bentham 77:65.

-Hutcheson, Francis
  An Inquiry into theOriginal of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, treatise 2, sect.3. This is the classic exposition of pragmatism.

Some experience of popular lecturing had convinced me that the necessity of making things plain to uninstructed people was one of the very best means of clearing up the obscure corners in one's own mind.

-Huxley,T(homas) H(enry)
  Man's Place in Nature (rev edn), preface.

Next tobeing right inthis world, thebest of all things isto be clearly and definitely wrong. If you go buzzing about between right and wrong, vibrating and fluctuating, you come out nowhere; but if you are absolutelyand thoroughlyand persistently wrong you must, some of these days, have the extreme good fortune of knocking yourheadagainstafact, andthat setsyouallstraightagain.

-Huxley,T(homas) H(enry)
Attributed.

Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  Letter to Francesco Sastres, 21  Aug. Quoted in  James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.4.

The best that an American can look forward to is the lonely pleasure of one who stands at long last on a chilly and inhospitable mountain top where few have been, where few can follow, and where few will consent to believe that he has been.

-Kennan, George Frost
On negotiating with the Soviets. Quoted in Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas The Wise Men (1986).

Ship me somewhere east of Suez, where the best is like the worst, Where there aren't noTen Commandments an'a man can raise a thirst.

-Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard
  'Mandalay'.

It is always easy to find fault with a classification. There are a hundred ways of arranging any set of objects, and something mayalmost always be said against the best, and in favour of the worst of them. But the merits of a classification depend on the purposes to which it is instrumental.

-Mill,John Stuart
  Auguste Comte and Positivism.

   When things go wrong and will not come right, Though you do the best you can, When life looks black as the hour of nightö

-Myles na Gopaleen
US   writer.   She   is   best   known   as   a   novelist,   but   has   also published   several   volumes   of   poetry,   and   essays,   critical writings and journalism.

The best is the best, though a hundred judges have declared it so.

-Quiller-Couch, SirArthurThomas known as  'Q'
  The Oxford Book of EnglishVerse, preface.

If we live inside a bad joke, it is up to us to learn, at best and worst, to tell it well.

-Raban,Jonathan
  Coasting, ch.6.

Competition brings out the best in products and the worst in people.

-Sarnoff, David
Attributed.

Poetry is a record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.

-Shelley, Percy Bysshe
A Defence of Poetry.

We will do our best to reward your faith in us, but please give us the opportunity to serve our country, that is all we ask.

-Smith,John
  Address to a European Gala Dinner,11 May.They were his final public words; he died the next morning of a heart attack.

Take short views, hope for the best, and trust in God.

-Smith, Rev Sydney
Quoted in Lady Holland Memoir (1855), vol1, ch. 6.

Drinking the best tea in the world in an empty cricket groundöthat, I think, is the final pleasure left to man.

-Snow, C(harles) P(ercy), 1st Baron
  Quoted in ColinJarmanThe Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

It is best to live anyhow, as one may; do not be afraid of marriage with your mother! Many have lain with their mothers in dreams too. It is he to whom such things are nothing who puts up with life best.

-Sophocles
Jocasta to Oedipus, her son and husband, before they both discover the truth of the prophecy. OedipusTyrannus, 979^83 (translated by H Lloyd-Jones,1994).

My name is Death: the last best friend am I.

-Southey, Robert
  'The Lay of the Laureate', stanza 87.

All the nice people were poor; at least, that was a general axiom, the best of the rich being poor in spirit.

-Spark, Dame Muriel Sarah ne¤  e  Camberg
  The Girls of Slender Means, ch.1.