FastSaying

Pain and sorrow and misery have a right to our assistance: compassion puts us in mind of the debt, and that we owe it to ourselves as well as to the distressed.


Joseph Butler

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KELLY JONES Well, well, well I am trap in well, half way to hell.
DEYTH BANGER We owe the community a debt of gratitude for what it did for this school. This field is great now, a...
MIKE DIMATTEO The first and foremost human right or fundamental right is the right to exist.
APURVA GAGLANI The Biggest Threat to our Democracy, Freedoms and Future is Leadership that fosters and Appeases the...
MICHAEL HARRIS Use your heart. Understand. Learn to see things
in the now, not as they were or will be, or as ...
E.J. PATTEN As you may follow, they are an extremely hostile species (i.e. there is no word for ‘welcome’ in...
CHRISTINA ENGELA That's why we seize the moment try to freeze it and own it, squeeze it and hold it.
EMINEM Developing our capacity for compassion makes it possible for us to help others in a more skillful an...
JOAN HALIFAX This is too much reality for a Friday.
AS GOOD AS IT GETS The world is so full of care and sorrow that it is a gracious debt we owe to one another to discover...
HELEN KELLER As long as we don’t buckle under the weight of the pain and its longevity, when the pain does subs...
OSCAR AULIQ-ICE The debt of gratitude we owe our mother and father goes forward, not backward. What we owe our paren...
NANCY FRIDAY The earth is an arena of champions. We are all champions. We all did overcome millions of potential ...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Why be an ostrich?
MARGARET MITCHELL America's fighting men and women sacrifice much to ensure that our great nation stays free. We owe a...
ALLEN BOYD I think we'll be able to sort it out, ... Don't forget, we have an opportunity to play on Monday Nig...
TOM COUGHLIN Clay in the hands of a good potter suffers so many good turns, but in the end, we see its real and t...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH The universe is so vast, so immense, we can never expect to explore it all. It is in effect, not so ...
CHRISTINA ENGELA Friendship is a double-edged sword one side it can be great and true but the other side it spells be...
GARY F EVANS... America's fighting men and women sacrifice much to ensure that our great nation stays free. We o...
ALLEN BOYD Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it appears to be.
JEFFREY FRY We players understand we have the best lives in the world. We owe a debt of gratitude to all our fan...
BRUCE BOWEN He covered page after page with wild words of sorrow and wilder words of pain. There is a luxury in ...
OSCAR WILDE We are all 'right' if we are being truly ourselves.... that is the best we can be in each moment, un...
JAY WOODMAN We're our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.
PATRICIA SAMPSON We're our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.
TOM ROBBINS Would it please you if I said your eyes were twin gold-fish bowls filled to the brim with the cleare...
MARGARET MITCHELL We're our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.
TOM ROBBINS In the journey of life, certain paths may seem to be leading nowhere because of a mountain or hill o...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Our minds become slaves to those we see as having total power to control us and to cause pain to us....
MAJID KAZMI We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to those who serve or have served in our country's military...
SYLVIA MATHEWS BURWELL By compassion we make others' misery our own, and so, by relieving them, we relieve ourselves also
THOMAS BROWNE SR. Well, my dear, take heart. Some day, I will kiss you and you will like it. But not now, so I beg you...
MARGARET MITCHELL Today, as we look back on the history of our nation and take note of how far we have come as a peopl...
SAM BROWNBACK The market is still waiting for HSBC results, which will have a big impact on the direction of the m...
ANDREW TO Property shares had a technical rebound, but interest rate concerns will still affect properties unt...
ANDREW TO Bank of China's results were quite good; double-digit growth can be taken as good results for a bank...
ANDREW TO The index tried to challenge 18,000 but failed, so that triggered profit taking. Tokyo's slide also ...
ANDREW TO Trading seems to be focusing on selective counters because investors are cautious amid interest rate...
ANDREW TO We're seeing a minor technical rebound after Wall Street rebounded from two days of losses. The key ...
ANDREW TO Some investors have returned to pick up the stock at bargain prices.
ANDREW TO I think the take-up for the placement is not too good and other property developers may be discourag...
ANDREW TO We are afraid that our freedoms and liberties will be infringed in the future.
ANDREW TO I think there was some minor selling pressure on telecom stocks as the market continued to see a wea...
ANDREW TO As a people, we have wrestled with Vietnam's legacy for many years, as was and is our duty. Now we w...
STEPHEN AMBROSE Then you've made the only choice. But there's a penalty attached, as there is to most things you wan...
MARGARET MITCHELL How should I know?" said Alice, surprised at her own courage. "It's no business of mine."
The Q...
LEWIS CARROLL Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, f...
HENRI J.M. NOUWEN Yes! Very funny this terrible thing is. A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls i...
JOSEPH CONRAD Sex joins two people spiritually and emotionally as well as physically. This is its purpose-to bond ...
CRAIG GROESCHEL I think that many people will intentionally overlook all of the lifeless facts about their relations...
C. JOYBELL C. When we respond to our pain and suffering with love, understanding, and acceptance—for ourselves, ...
SHARON SALZBERG I have the right to remain violente. Everything I say can and will be used against you.
EMINEM When compassion wakes up in us, we find ourselves more willing to become vulnerable, to take the ris...
SUE MONK KIDD We should tell ourselves, once and for all, that it is the first duty of the soul to become as happy...
MAURICE MAETERLINCK We owe God a "double debt" incurred by our passive receipt of Adam's debt but also by our active dis...
FOPPE VANDER ZWAAG I do not serve and never will serve the human body. I serve only the human soul - the soul that is t...
ABHIJIT NASKAR Metta is the ability to embrace all parts of ourselves, as well as all parts of the world. Practicin...
SHARON SALZBERG Congratulations, to the people which made gotham series, still need some more and extra work!
DEYTH BANGER To have the cognitive abilities to do research and development is vital to a forever expanding world...
GARY F EVANS... If we ever put research into what the subconscious is we could probably come to the conclusion that ...
GARY F EVANS... i know im not the girl you wanted. not the one you want to hear from. but what you see is what you g...
SIMI GREWAL Your soul has the innate potential to become the antidote to all the darkness in the world.
ABHIJIT NASKAR When we talk about the minimum wage, we have to ask ourselves what it is that we owe both our worker...
DALTON MCGUINTY We can be so heavily invested in our tales of sorrow and woe that we have no clue how much repeating...
CATHERINE CARRIGAN Life is a competition to eliminate fear and doubts to double our life to live better not bitter in t...
NAZIM AMBALATH It is almost impossible for anyone, even the most ineffective among us, to continue to choose misery...
WILLIAM GLASSER We have tears in our eyes
As we wave our goodbyes,
We so loved being with you, we three. ROALD DAHL It is awareness of both our shared pain and our longing for happiness that links us to other people ...
SHARON SALZBERG They taught me different was wrong.
ANI DIFRANCO I suppose I'm in that very small group of people who are not waiting for their own story to unfold. ...
CAROL RIFKA BRUNT As we get past our superficial material wants and instant gratification we connect to a deeper part ...
JUDITH WRIGHT 37. It is better to be single and unhappy than unhappily married.
JAMES C. DOBSON Time determines the occurrence of possibilities and impossibilities, but God determines the time for...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Let us have faith that Right makes Might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty a...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN I don't think anybody has quit, we're just going through a rough time, ... We owe it to ourselves an...
CRAIG MONROE We were really ordinary people and we really owe a debt of gratitude to (their adviser) Daisy Bates ...
ERNEST GREEN Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to ...
JAMES BRYCE We have just four returning varsity players and North Butler has played together a much longer perio...
LAURA JOHNSON As the season went on our offence continued to grow with the assistance of Bill. He was able to insp...
TOM HIGGINS Every time we sin, it causes chaos in our lives; maybe not at that very moment, but eventually it al...
ROBIN BERTRAM You release the pain of the past and press on. It's a new day, and God is doing a new thing. He want...
CRAIG GROESCHEL Belief in God puts our life on autopilot. We know that someone up there is watching us and is in con...
BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA Some people never take a chance and never know what it's like to live life to the full.
CHLOE THURLOW Not everyone has the time to be normal.
LJUPKA CVETANOVA Anything man can make, man can destroy.
JONATHAN ANTHONY BURKETT We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON He is the God who loved you so much that His Son stripped Himself of all heavenly glory to live as a...
CRAIG GROESCHEL Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life - in a firmness of mind and mastery of app...
LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA Ryan Butler and our quarterback have been hooking up all year long. Our skill players are doing well...
JOE MATTHEWS Vents were added to the rear bonnet in 1972 and resulted in wet engines and starting problems, and t...
CHRISTINA ENGELA A feeling of sadness and longing that is not akin to pain, and resembles sorrow only as the mist res...
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As...
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW A feeling of sadness and longing that is not akin to pain, and resembles sorrow only as the mist r...
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life -- in firmness of mind and a mastery of ap...
SENECA (SENECA THE ELDER) Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life - in firmness of mind and a mastery of app...
SENECA Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life - in firmness of mind and a mastery of app...
LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA It is a debt we owe to the purity of our religion to show that it is at variance with that law which...
PATRICK HENRY

More Joseph Butler

The principle we call self-love never seeks anything external for the sake of the thing, but only as...
JOSEPH BUTLER The Epistles in the New Testament have all of them a particular reference to the condition and usage...
JOSEPH BUTLER Happiness or satisfaction consists only in the enjoyment of those objects which are by nature suited...
JOSEPH BUTLER The private interest of the individual would not be sufficiently provided for by reasonable and cool...
JOSEPH BUTLER Every man hath a general desire of his own happiness; and likewise a variety of particular affection...
JOSEPH BUTLER The object of self-love is expressed in the term self; and every appetite of sense, and every partic...
JOSEPH BUTLER The tongue may be employed about, and made to serve all the purposes of vice, in tempting and deceiv...
JOSEPH BUTLER Man may act according to that principle or inclination which for the present happens to be strongest...
JOSEPH BUTLER It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted, by many persons, that Christianity is not so mu...
JOSEPH BUTLER To desire the attainment of this equality or superiority by the particular means of others being bro...
JOSEPH BUTLER God Almighty is, to be sure, unmoved by passion or appetite, unchanged by affection; but then it is ...
JOSEPH BUTLER Every one of our passions and affections hath its natural stint and bound, which may easily be excee...
JOSEPH BUTLER The sum of the whole is plainly this: The nature of man considered in his single capacity, and with ...
JOSEPH BUTLER Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be: why th...
JOSEPH BUTLER Love of our neighbour, then, has just the same respect to, is no more distant from, self-love, than ...
JOSEPH BUTLER That which is the foundation of all our hopes and of all our fears; all our hopes and fears which ar...
JOSEPH BUTLER Sir, the pretending to extraordinary revelations and gifts of the Holy Ghost is a horrid thing, a ve...
JOSEPH BUTLER What interested me is that it is working-class and some middle-class housing, ... Typically one find...
JOSEPH BUTLER But to us, probability is the very guide of life
JOSEPH BUTLER Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be; why t...
BISHOP JOSEPH BUTLER The first thought is often the best. - Bishop Joseph Butler,
BISHOP JOSEPH BUTLER When I'm 80 and sagging all over, I can tell my grandkids, 'Look, when I was a lad, 'Peo...
GERARD BUTLER Honestly, what can really be said about 'the Jewish people' as a whole? Is it not a lamentab...
JUDITH BUTLER I never worked less than 16-hour days on South Beach.
YANCY BUTLER I think seeing some of the past can be helpful, especially if you're into crime solving.
YANCY BUTLER I'll try anything once.
YANCY BUTLER I'm open to sci-fi, but I was never a diehard fan. I have no idea why it keeps following me. I&#...
YANCY BUTLER I'm the oldest 26-year-old I know. A lot of experience has been crammed into a short amount of t...
YANCY BUTLER I've spent a lot of time and money trying to keep my anger in control.
YANCY BUTLER My grandfather was a cop in Long Island. I often try to draw on things that I've heard about him...
YANCY BUTLER My mother's side of the family was in the production side of theatre. My grandfather, Jose Vega,...
YANCY BUTLER Once you get into a part, and someone sees you, you get asked to do it again.
YANCY BUTLER To say I'm the easiest person to live with would be a lie.
YANCY BUTLER People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio b...
SAMUEL BUTLER Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.
SAMUEL BUTLER To live is like to love - all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.
SAMUEL BUTLER If I die prematurely I shall be saved from being bored to death at my own success.
SAMUEL BUTLER The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.
SAMUEL BUTLER Self-preservation is the first law of nature.
SAMUEL BUTLER A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
SAMUEL BUTLER Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.
SAMUEL BUTLER Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
SAMUEL BUTLER The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.
SAMUEL BUTLER Whether it goes to series or stands by itself, I'm proud of what we did with it, not only from t...
YANCY BUTLER A comic can be aesthetically beautiful. I think they captured it beautifully and accurately.
YANCY BUTLER Don't we all just really try to fake it well?
YANCY BUTLER I love old movies. The '40s theatre pace is fantastic.
YANCY BUTLER I'm just an actress. They try to give me as little information as possible.
YANCY BUTLER I've always played strong women who are doing their own thing.
YANCY BUTLER Yancy is actually a Native-American name, but I'm Irish. Go figure.
YANCY BUTLER I grew up in Greenwich Village. Dad was friends with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
YANCY BUTLER My junior high was dreadful. I see a lot of my fellow alumni on America's Most Wanted.
YANCY BUTLER Women have been kicking ass for centuries.
YANCY BUTLER People just kind of associate me with kicking some ass.
YANCY BUTLER Imagine if it happened to you: All of a sudden you find this thing on your wrist and people are tell...
YANCY BUTLER My taste in music and entertainment is quite eclectic.
YANCY BUTLER I pretty much make time for that weekly manicure.
YANCY BUTLER I think sometimes women who are supposed to be strong are also written as mean and vindictive.
YANCY BUTLER I think we won't be able to understand the operations of trans-phobia, homophobia, if we don'...
JUDITH BUTLER We act as if that being of a man or that being of a woman is actually an internal reality or somethi...
JUDITH BUTLER You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good st...
OCTAVIA BUTLER When you've told someone that you've left them a legacy the only decent thing to do is to di...
SAMUEL BUTLER A man who reads effeminate may well be consistently heterosexual, and another one might be gay. We c...
JUDITH BUTLER Bishops are like umpires. You have to have them to call the close decisions.
FRANK BUTLER I've had broken bones and cuts and dashes and tears from movies, but when I was five, my mom put...
GERARD BUTLER No one was going to stop me from writing and no one had to really guide me towards science fiction. ...
OCTAVIA BUTLER Science fiction let me do both. It let me look into science and stick my nose in everywhere.
OCTAVIA BUTLER And by the way, I wanted to point out that Kindred is not science fiction. You'll note there'...
OCTAVIA BUTLER Fantasy is totally wide open; all you really have to do is follow the rules you've set. But if y...
OCTAVIA BUTLER Writing is one of the few professions in which you can psychoanalyse yourself, get rid of hostilitie...
OCTAVIA BUTLER And I have this little litany of things they can do. And the first one, of course, is to write - eve...
OCTAVIA BUTLER People have the right to call themselves whatever they like. That doesn't bother me. It's ot...
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OCTAVIA BUTLER Once you grow past Mommy and Daddy coming running when you're hurt, you're really on your ow...
OCTAVIA BUTLER I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell.
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OCTAVIA BUTLER A workshop is a way of renting an audience, and making sure you're communicating what you think ...
OCTAVIA BUTLER What I'm working on now - I'm back to fantasy, although considering that it's me, I'...
OCTAVIA BUTLER I have a huge and savage conscience that won't let me get away with things.
OCTAVIA BUTLER Religion kept some of my relatives alive, because it was all they had. If they hadn't had some h...
OCTAVIA BUTLER Most of us don't have to worry about being shot if we poke our noses outside. So we are comforta...
OCTAVIA BUTLER Well, writing was what I wanted to do, it was always what I wanted to do. I had novels to write so I...
OCTAVIA BUTLER Third, for people who aren't doing it already, take classes - they're worthwhile. Workshops ...
OCTAVIA BUTLER Black Sabbath was written on bass: I just walked into the studio and went, bah, bah, bah, and everyb...
GEEZER BUTLER I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brou...
SMEDLEY BUTLER Only if we accept the proposition that the state of Israel is the exclusive and legitimate represent...
JUDITH BUTLER I love my iPhone; it's great to have a camera around all the time.
WIN BUTLER The dons of Oxford and Cambridge are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anyth...
SAMUEL BUTLER Cameras help to minimize collateral damage, and very often, without a camera a missile cannot fire. ...
JUDITH BUTLER I'm not big on the closet.
DAN BUTLER I'm not a straight man, but I play one on television.
DAN BUTLER There are so many different camps about what being gay means. The danger comes when each one is so r...
DAN BUTLER Our responsibility as artists is to challenge ourselves.
DAN BUTLER I'm an actor.
DAN BUTLER Every retailer, when they price their goods, looks at their total cost overall. When they have costs...
DAN BUTLER I think there are a lot of honest people doing honest business on online auctions. But the control o...
DAN BUTLER Don't learn to do, but learn in doing. Let your falls not be on a prepared ground, but let them ...
SAMUEL BUTLER Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
SAMUEL BUTLER The advantage of doing one's praising to oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in t...
SAMUEL BUTLER I went to the Bach Choir concert and heard Mozart's Requiem. I did not rise warmly to it. Then I hea...
SAMUEL BUTLER It is a wise tune that knows its own father, and I like my music to be the legitimate offspring of r...
SAMUEL BUTLER The money men make lives after them.
SAMUEL BUTLER The want of money is the root of all evil.
SAMUEL BUTLER All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.
SAMUEL BUTLER For most men, and most circumstances, pleasure --tangible material prosperity in this world --is the...
SAMUEL BUTLER A lawyers dream of heaven; every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to r...
SAMUEL BUTLER In law, nothing is certain but the expense.
SAMUEL BUTLER People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.
SAMUEL BUTLER Optimism and humor are the grease and glue of life. Without both of them we would never have survive...
PHILIP BUTLER Life is one long process of getting tired.
SAMUEL BUTLER Is life worth living? This is a question for an embryo not for a man.
SAMUEL BUTLER Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
SAMUEL BUTLER A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage -- but they are also no less invalid...
SAMUEL BUTLER A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does...
SAMUEL BUTLER When the righteous man truth away from his righteousness that he hath committed and doeth that which...
SAMUEL BUTLER It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.
SAMUEL BUTLER Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.
SAMUEL BUTLER The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.
SAMUEL BUTLER Arguments are like fire-arms which a man may keep at home but should not carry about with him.
SAMUEL BUTLER We are not won by arguments that we can analyze, but by tone and temper; by the manner, which is the...
SAMUEL BUTLER Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.
SAMUEL BUTLER Because they did not see merit where they should have seen it, people, to express their regret, will...
SAMUEL BUTLER There is but one step from the Academy to the Fad.
SAMUEL BUTLER The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.
SAMUEL BUTLER I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.
SAMUEL BUTLER Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging h...
SAMUEL BUTLER Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
SAMUEL BUTLER To die is but to leave off dying and do the thing once for all.
SAMUEL BUTLER The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the...
SAMUEL BUTLER There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.
SAMUEL BUTLER What is faith but a kind of betting or speculation after all? It should be, I bet that my Redeemer l...
SAMUEL BUTLER You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.
SAMUEL BUTLER Don't learn to do, but learn in doing. Let your falls not be on a prepared ground, but let them be b...
SAMUEL BUTLER Man is God's highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.
SAMUEL BUTLER If God wants us to do a thing, he should make his wishes sufficiently clear. Sensible people will wa...
SAMUEL BUTLER We all like to forgive, and love best not those who offend us least, nor who have done most for us, ...
SAMUEL BUTLER There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.
SAMUEL BUTLER Eating is touch carried to the bitter end.
SAMUEL BUTLER The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.
SAMUEL BUTLER Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.
SAMUEL BUTLER Youth is like spring, an over-praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. A...
SAMUEL BUTLER There are two great rules of life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that every...
SAMUEL BUTLER I believe that he was really sorry that people would not believe he was sorry that he was not more s...
SAMUEL BUTLER Life, they urge, would be intolerable if men were to be guided in all they did by reason and reason ...
SAMUEL BUTLER If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.
SAMUEL BUTLER The public do not know enough to be experts, but know enough to decide between them.
SAMUEL BUTLER In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved.
SAMUEL BUTLER It is tact that is golden, not silence.
SAMUEL BUTLER Silence is not always tact, but it is tact that is golden, not silence.
SAMUEL BUTLER All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.
SAMUEL BUTLER From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.
SAMUEL BUTLER Parents are the last people on earth who ought to have children.
SAMUEL BUTLER When the water of a place is bad it is safest to drink none that has not been filtered through eithe...
SAMUEL BUTLER Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderated...
SAMUEL BUTLER The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.
SAMUEL BUTLER The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religi...
SAMUEL BUTLER A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that is blind ...
SAMUEL BUTLER Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism.
SAMUEL BUTLER The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to ap...
SAMUEL BUTLER Loyalty is still the same, whether it win or lose the game; true as a dial to the sun, although it b...
SAMUEL BUTLER One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fightin...
SAMUEL BUTLER Logic is like the sword
SAMUEL BUTLER All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond it...
SAMUEL BUTLER Everyone should keep a mental wastepaper basket, and the older he grows, the more things will he pro...
SAMUEL BUTLER The clergyman is expected to be a kind of human Sunday.
SAMUEL BUTLER He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most. God will take care that we do not enjoy it any m...
SAMUEL BUTLER A hen is only a egg's way of making another egg.
SAMUEL BUTLER To himself everyone is an immortal. He may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that ...
SAMUEL BUTLER I reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obl...
SAMUEL BUTLER The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is ...
SAMUEL BUTLER Opinions have vested interests just as men have.
SAMUEL BUTLER The world will only, in the end, follow those who have despised as well as served it.
SAMUEL BUTLER Compound for sins they are inclined to by damning those they have no mind to.
SAMUEL BUTLER The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he no...
SAMUEL BUTLER A skilful leech is better far, than half a hundred men of war.
SAMUEL BUTLER Neither have they hearts to stay, nor wit enough to run away.
SAMUEL BUTLER Every one is a genius, more or less. No one is so physically sound that no part of him will be even ...
SAMUEL BUTLER A genius can never expect to have a good time anywhere, if he is a genuine article, but America is a...
SAMUEL BUTLER God cannot alter the past, but historians can.
SAMUEL BUTLER Heaven is the work of the best and kindest men and women. Hell is the work of prigs, pedants and pro...
SAMUEL BUTLER Letters are like wine; if they are sound they ripen with keeping. A man should lay down letters as h...
SAMUEL BUTLER Those who have never had a father can at any rate never know the sweets of losing one. To most men t...
SAMUEL BUTLER For every why he had a wherefore.
SAMUEL BUTLER Then spare the rod and spoil the child.
SAMUEL BUTLER People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it ...
SAMUEL BUTLER If there is any moral in Christianity, if there is anything to be learned from it, if the whole stor...
SAMUEL BUTLER Such as take lodgings in a head that's to be let unfurnished.
SAMUEL BUTLER An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when intr...
SAMUEL BUTLER Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions.
SAMUEL BUTLER The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
SAMUEL BUTLER English literature is a kind of training in social ethics. English trains you to handle a body of in...
MARILYN BUTLER Birth and death are so closely related that one could not destroy either without destroying the othe...
SAMUEL BUTLER It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy -- but he who has s...
SAMUEL BUTLER Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he...
SAMUEL BUTLER It is immoral to get drunk because the headache comes after the drinking, but if the headache came f...
SAMUEL BUTLER He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.
SAMUEL BUTLER Science, after all, is only an expression for our ignorance of our own ignorance.
SAMUEL BUTLER A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not se...
SAMUEL BUTLER The thief. Once committed beyond a certain point he should not worry himself too much about not bein...
SAMUEL BUTLER The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.
SAMUEL BUTLER