It were better to be eaten to death with rust than to be scoured to nothing by perpetual motion.—Henry IV., Second Part, I. 2.
Reversed by Byron:—
Better to sink beneath the shock
Than moulder piecemeal on the rock.—Giaour.
’Tis her breathing that
Perfumes the chamber thus.—Cymbeline.
No lips did seem so fair
In his conceit—through which he thinks doth fly