Better is the enemy of good

The expression “Better is the enemy of good” marks Ursus’s reversal from confidence in his own judgment to rueful recognition of a familiar truth. After hearing of the designs against the Green Box, he regrets having come to London and recalls the proverb he had once considered ill-considered.

The Proverb in Context

Ursus has heard of the danger through the innkeeper and fears the police and the justices, whose attention he does not wish to attract. Against this immediate anxiety, the proverb becomes a private reckoning with the decision that brought him to London: what had seemed an improvement now looks like a mistake.

Ursus’s Reconsideration

Murmuring to himself, Ursus acknowledges that he was wrong to dismiss the saying: “I thought the proverb was ill-considered. I was wrong. Stupid truths are true truths.” The expression gains force through that concession. Its apparent simplicity is not a defect; in a moment when his circumstances have turned against him, the obvious lesson proves difficult to evade.