Samuel Butler

The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.

Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism.

Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.

Let us eat and drink neither forgetting death unduly nor remembering it. The Lord hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, etc., and the less we think about it the better.

We all like to forgive, and love best not those who offend us least, nor who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.

Priests are not men of the world; it is not intended that they should be; and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so.

Lest I keep my complacent way I must remember somewhere out there a person died for me today. As long as there must be war, I ask and I must answer was I worth dying for?

As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient training, so the man of weak thoughts can make them strong by exercising himself in right thinking.

Why is that others have so much faith in me, while I have so little? Why can’t I have the same belief in me that they have? Why can’t I see in myself, what they do? What is it that makes me, hold myself back? How many more hurdles do I need to overcome? There are so many questions that I have to find the answers to. And I will only find them by focusing and being completely honest with myself.

The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.

Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.

A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.

People ignore the thing they have the most power over. I know so many people who will go to a protest and do something big on an issue. But they won’t deal with that issue in their home.

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.

I don’t do quagmires.

It is possible to be free and loving no matter what your circumstances.

Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.

He is great who confers the most benefits.

Friendship is the next Pleasure we may hope for: And where we find it not at home, or have no home to find it in, we may seek it abroad. It is an Union of Spirits, a Marriage of Hearts, and the Bond thereof Vertue.

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.