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The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.


Samuel Butler

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I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES The end of the world is a strange concept. The world is always ending, and the end is always being a...
NEIL GAIMAN I don't know if I have a favorite color.
KATE MIDDLETON It's very special having a new little girl.
KATE MIDDLETON The history of the world is the world's court of justice.
FRIEDRICH SCHILLER I can't solve the problems of the world, but being the best person I can be will certainly lessen th...
JIM GENOVESE If you say you will lead a people to a new age then do it, but don't hide behind your laws as an exc...
DEAN IBERHYSAJ It is not the grain of grass that will decide mans future but the bullet that comes from the barrel ...
DEAN IBERHYSAJ Philosophies of the world: Indian Philosophy: Survive and grow Chinese Philosophy: Lets fake it West...
APURVA GAGLANI Controlling, Sickening, Demoralizing, Disgraceful, Limiting, and Falsely "Ambitionizingly" Repetitiv...
NICKOLE SANDERS There is no longer a single idea explaining everything, but an infinite number of essences giving a ...
ALBERT CAMUS She said 'Over my dead body!' so I took her at her word.
DIANA WYNNE JONES What is the Other?" they ask.
The Other is the one who taught me whatI should be like, but not ...
PAULO COELHO From the Kindle Book Reflections in the Mirror of Life:
“In a slum somewhere in India
As...
THE PROPHET OF LIFE It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from there.
PIERRE ELLIOTT TRUDEAU Any death is stupid from the viewpoint of whoever is undergoing it, Adam One used to say, because no...
MARGARET ATWOOD Look, my friends!' he called. 'Here's a pretty hobbit-skin to wrap an elven princeling in! If it wer...
J.R.R. TOLKIEN It's all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you're properly trained.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Like all best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II My husband has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years, and I owe him a debt greater ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II It is easy enough to define what the Commonwealth is not. Indeed this is quite a popular pastime.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have to be seen to be believed.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have in sincerity pledged myself to your service, as so many of you are pledged to mine. Throughou...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I hope that tomorrow we can all, wherever we are, join in expressing our grief at Diana's loss, ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I myself prefer my New Zealand eggs for breakfast.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II The British constitution has always been puzzling and always will be.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have behind me not only the splendid traditions and the annals of more than a thousand years but t...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II To what greater inspiration and counsel can we turn than to the imperishable truth to be found in th...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something e...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts an...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Grief is the price we pay for love.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II The upward course of a nation's history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II At its heart, engineering is about using science to find creative, practical solutions. It is a nobl...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II At Christmas, I am always struck by how the spirit of togetherness lies also at the heart of the Chr...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II For many, Christmas is also a time for coming together. But for others, service will come first.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II The lessons from the peace process are clear; whatever life throws at us, our individual responses w...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your s...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Therefore I am sure that this, my Coronation, is not the symbol of a power and a splendor that are g...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the man...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Madam President, speaking here in Dublin Castle it is impossible to ignore the weight of history, as...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II These wretched babies don't come until they are ready.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I know of no single formula for success. But over the years I have observed that some attributes of ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II The events that I have attended to mark my Diamond Jubilee have been a humbling experience. It has t...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II In remembering the appalling suffering of war on both sides, we recognise how precious is the peace ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II No one who knew Diana will ever forget her. Millions of others who never met her, but felt they knew...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have been aware all the time that my peoples, spread far and wide throughout every continent and o...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II The history of liberty is a history of resistance.
WOODROW WILSON The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons.
EDWIN POWELL HUBBLE The history of mankind is a history of war.
MIKE LOVE History has been the history of warfare.
GODFREY REGGIO We'll sort of get over the marriage first and then maybe look at the kids. But obviously we want...
PRINCE WILLIAM Family is the most important thing in the world.
PRINCESS DIANA You philosophers are lucky men. You write on paper and paper is patient. Unfortunate Empress that I ...
CATHERINE THE GREAT With the right help, children have a good chance of overcoming their issues while they are still you...
KATE MIDDLETON As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.
KING SOLOMON I don't mind a big fascinator. I think there is more scope for artwork in a fascinator rather th...
ZARA PHILLIPS I was always told from the hat-makers that you should have your hair up because it shows the hat mor...
ZARA PHILLIPS I don't think I'll still be riding at 40. There are a couple of people who are still riding ...
ZARA PHILLIPS My dad's not a big talker.
ZARA PHILLIPS My dad can be pretty critical sometimes.
ZARA PHILLIPS I'd love to have kids, but not at the moment.
ZARA PHILLIPS You cannot make horses 'safe.'
ZARA PHILLIPS Virtually everything that gets printed about me is wrong anyway, so it doesn't really matter wha...
ZARA PHILLIPS It's stupid to say that I don't like being in the public eye, but I don't like doing stu...
ZARA PHILLIPS I'm an affectionate person.
ZARA PHILLIPS People still text me to say that there is something about me in the paper, and what really annoys me...
ZARA PHILLIPS Sometimes people will come up in the street and say: 'My daughter loves you, will you sign an au...
ZARA PHILLIPS Taking part in an Olympics on home ground is something you dream about.
ZARA PHILLIPS My brother and I have been able to get on and have been very lucky to do things with our family that...
ZARA PHILLIPS I don't think about the media.
ZARA PHILLIPS I love the sport and being competitive.
ZARA PHILLIPS The horses are all characters, all personalities. Some you get along with, some you don't, some ...
ZARA PHILLIPS I hate having my picture taken.
ZARA PHILLIPS Unfortunately in sport it's either good or bad. You've got to take the highs and the lows.
ZARA PHILLIPS My mother is massively into sailing, so we always had Musto clothes, and it went on from there, real...
ZARA PHILLIPS The senior members of the royal family work very hard and I don't think people quite realise tha...
ZARA PHILLIPS In our sport you're very lucky to find a horse of a lifetime and I found mine relatively early. ...
ZARA PHILLIPS I don't have a stylist, and I do most of my shopping online, just because it's easier. I don...
ZARA PHILLIPS I think Facebook's dangerous. So many people I know get into trouble with Facebook... I'd ra...
ZARA PHILLIPS I'm not a princess anyway so I find that quite weird to be labelled as one.
ZARA PHILLIPS Smoking is hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, and dangerous to the lungs.
KING JAMES I My dear mamma is quite right when she says that we must lay down principles and not depart from them...
MARIE ANTOINETTE I never make a trip to the United States without visiting a supermarket. To me they are more fascina...
WALLIS SIMPSON PS: It's all gossip about the prince. I'm not in the habit of taking my girlfriends' bea...
WALLIS SIMPSON I am so anxious for you not to abdicate and I think the fact that you do is going to put me in the w...
WALLIS SIMPSON I hate this place. I shall hate it to my grave.
WALLIS SIMPSON I look a hundred and weigh 110 - you won't love me when you see the wreck England has made me.
WALLIS SIMPSON A woman's life can really be a succession of lives, each revolving around some emotionally compe...
WALLIS SIMPSON Never explain, never complain.
WALLIS SIMPSON You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance.
WALLIS SIMPSON I have always had the courage for the new things that life sometimes offers.
WALLIS SIMPSON For a gallant spirit there can never be defeat.
WALLIS SIMPSON Forgive me for not writing but this man is exhausting.
WALLIS SIMPSON You can never be too rich or too thin.
WALLIS SIMPSON A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
KING SOLOMON It seems to me that man is made to act rather than to know: the principles of things escape our most...
FREDERICK THE GREAT Addiction is a hugely complex and destructive disease, and its impact can be simply devastating. All...
KATE MIDDLETON

More Samuel 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 When you've told someone that you've left them a legacy the only decent thing to do is to di...
SAMUEL BUTLER The dons of Oxford and Cambridge are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anyth...
SAMUEL 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 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 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 The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.
SAMUEL BUTLER Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it.
SAMUEL BUTLER Union may be strength, but it is mere blind brute strength unless wisely directed.
SAMUEL BUTLER The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is.
SAMUEL BUTLER Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
SAMUEL BUTLER The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.
SAMUEL BUTLER He that complies against his will, Is of his own opinion still.
SAMUEL BUTLER Spontaneity is only a term for man's ignorance of the gods
SAMUEL BUTLER To be at all is to be religious more or less
SAMUEL BUTLER Logic is like the sword--those who appeal to it shall perish by it.
SAMUEL BUTLER The extremes of glory and of shame, Like east and west, become the same No Indian prince has to his ...
SAMUEL BUTLER One who is proud of ancestry is like a turnip; there is nothing good of him but that which is underg...
SAMUEL BUTLER A lawyer's dream of heaven: every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to ...
SAMUEL BUTLER The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
SAMUEL BUTLER Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule.
SAMUEL BUTLER We payt a person the complement of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.
SAMUEL BUTLER Life is the art of drawing sufficent conclusions from insufficient premises.
SAMUEL BUTLER 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.
SAMUEL BUTLER Independence is essential for permanent but fatal to immediate success.
SAMUEL BUTLER All animals except man know that the ultimate point of life is to enjoy it. -Samuel Butler.
SAMUEL BUTLER The truest characters of ignorance are vanity, and pride and arrogance.
SAMUEL BUTLER The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, but the unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to...
SAMUEL BUTLER 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
SAMUEL BUTLER Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
SAMUEL BUTLER Silence is not always tact, and it is tact that is golden, not silence.
SAMUEL BUTLER Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.
SAMUEL BUTLER When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.
SAMUEL BUTLER Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds...
SAMUEL BUTLER All philosophies, if you ride them, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.
SAMUEL BUTLER Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.
SAMUEL BUTLER Christ and The Church: If he were to apply for a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, adultery and des...
SAMUEL BUTLER People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or a...
SAMUEL BUTLER God cannot alter the past, though historians can.
SAMUEL BUTLER Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything els...
SAMUEL BUTLER Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.
SAMUEL BUTLER Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.
SAMUEL BUTLER The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that yo...
SAMUEL BUTLER We shall never get people whose time is money to take much interest in atoms.
SAMUEL BUTLER Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely re...
SAMUEL BUTLER Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.
SAMUEL BUTLER Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism. Whether it is or is not more efficaci...
SAMUEL BUTLER Having, then, once introduced an element of inconsistency into his system, he was far too consistent...
SAMUEL BUTLER We are not won by arguments that we can analyse but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the m...
SAMUEL BUTLER Christ was only crucified once and for a few hours. Think of the hundreds of thousands whom Christ h...
SAMUEL BUTLER A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing.
SAMUEL BUTLER It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy - but he who has sh...
SAMUEL BUTLER A physician's physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric's di...
SAMUEL BUTLER A drunkard would not give money to sober people. He said they would only eat it, and buy clothes and...
SAMUEL BUTLER In old times people used to try and square the circle; now they try and devise schemes for satisfyin...
SAMUEL BUTLER Words are clothes that thoughts wear
SAMUEL BUTLER The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is
SAMUEL BUTLER The three most important parts a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money and his religiou...
SAMUEL BUTLER All progress is based on a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its ...
SAMUEL BUTLER There are two great rules of life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that every...
SAMUEL BUTLER People care more about being thought to have taste than about being good, clever, or amiable.
SAMUEL BUTLER A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
SAMUEL BUTLER It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something.
SAMUEL BUTLER If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue.
SAMUEL BUTLER Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty.
SAMUEL BUTLER Life is like playing the violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
SAMUEL BUTLER Logic is like the sword: those who appeal to it shall perish by it.
SAMUEL BUTLER An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has wri...
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 Then he saw also that it matters little what profession, whether of religion or irreligion, a man ma...
SAMUEL BUTLER All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it.
SAMUEL BUTLER It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as tr...
SAMUEL BUTLER Neither have they hearts to stay. Nor wit enough to run away.
SAMUEL BUTLER Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises
SAMUEL BUTLER If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised t...
SAMUEL BUTLER I consider being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill.
SAMUEL BUTLER There is no such source of error as the pursuit of truth.
SAMUEL BUTLER For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine.
SAMUEL BUTLER It is our less conscious thoughts and our less conscious actions which mainly mould our lives and th...
SAMUEL BUTLER There is nothing so unthinkable as thought, unless it be the entire absence of thought.
SAMUEL BUTLER Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a tr...
SAMUEL BUTLER Rare virtues are like rare plants or animals, things that have not been able to hold their own in th...
SAMUEL BUTLER A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.
SAMUEL BUTLER Though wisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can be gotten without it.
SAMUEL BUTLER For Wealth are all things that conduce, to one's destruction or their use. A standard both to buy an...
SAMUEL BUTLER Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.
SAMUEL BUTLER Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, i...
SAMUEL BUTLER An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard only one side of the case; God ha...
SAMUEL BUTLER The wish to spread those opinions that we hold conducive to our own welfare is so deeply rooted in ...
SAMUEL BUTLER To swallow gudgeons ere they're catched, And count their chickens ere they're hatched
SAMUEL BUTLER People are lucky and unlucky...according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been ...
SAMUEL BUTLER Quoth Hudibras, I smell a rat; Ralpho, thou dost prevaricate
SAMUEL BUTLER