“Even a bad bit of life is better than a good bit of death”

Jamie Bristoll

I thought I’d come up with a good one, here on my narrow boat, in Biblical rain, refilling the canal following a period of drought.

Sadly, my search informs me that I have only come up with a variant of a “Universal proverb” Who knew. Buggeration!

I was just trying to love the rain, lightning & thunder.

To love what is.

The specific phrasing “Even a bad bit of life is better than a good bit of death” is a slight variation of a deeply rooted, universal traditional proverb. [1]

Origins and Context

The exact idiom is most commonly translated or recorded as:

“Better a bad life than a good death.” [1]

While it does not belong to a single modern author, it has historical and cultural footprint across multiple formats:

G##gle Ai