Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Worst
Would Heaven this mourning were past!
One may have better luck at last;
Matters at worst are sure to mend,
The devil’s wife was but a fiend.
Prior.—The Turtle and Sparrow, Line 414.
Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward
To what they were before.
Shakespeare.—Macbeth, Act IV. Scene 2. (Rosse to Lady Macduff.)
His only solace was, that now,
His dog-bolt fortune was so low,
That either it must quickly end,
Or turn about again, and mend.
Butler.—Hudibras, Part II. Canto I. Line 39.
I wish thy lot, now bad, still worse my friend;
For when at worst, they say, things always mend.
Cowper.—Translation from Owen. To a Friend in Distress.