Famous quotes containing the word lief:
“The journalists think that they cannot say too much in favor of such “improvements” in husbandry; it is a safe theme, like piety; but as for the beauty of one of these “model farms,” I would as lief see a patent churn and a man turning it. They are, commonly, places merely where somebody is making money, it may be counterfeiting.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,
trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it as many of your
players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The philanthropists inquire whether Transcendentalism does not mean sloth: they had as lief hear that their friend is dead, as that he is a Transcendentalist; for then is he paralyzed, and can never do anything for humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)