Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes
Write on your doors the saying wise and old,
"Be bold! be bold!" and everywhere - "Be bold;
Be not too bold!" Yet better the excess
Than the defect; better the more than less;
Better like Hector in the field to die,
Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. "Morituri Salutamus." The Masque of Pandora and Other Poems. James R. Osgood and Company, 1875, p. 102.
This has been attributed to Mussolini, most recently when this quote was tweeted by Donald Trump who was accused of repeating the words of the fascist dictator. This phrase was first used as a slogan by Italian solders in 1918 at the Battle of the Piave River during World War I. It was also written on the walls of many homes in the area to encourage each other during the battle.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and was one of the Fireside Poets from New England.
