Samuel Butler

Life is one long process of getting tired.

It is a wise tune that knows its own father, and I like my music to be the legitimate offspring of respectable parents.

The want of money is the root of all evil.

Loyalty is still the same, whether it win or lose the game; true as a dial to the sun, although it be not shined upon.

A man’s friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage – but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.

Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.

The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation.

To be innocent is to be not guilty; but to be virtuous is to overcome our evil inclinations.

His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong.

Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.

Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys.

The natural law of inertia: Matter will remain at rest or continue in uniform motion in the same straight line unless acted upon by some external force.

The generative energy, which, when we are loose, dissipates and makes us unclean, when we are continent invigorates and inspires us. Chastity is the flowering of man; and what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits which succeed it.

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

A strenuous soul hates cheap success.

The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

I am not bound over to swear allegiance to any master; where the storm drives me I turn in for shelter.

Don’t think of yourself as indispensable or infallible. As Charles De Gaulle said, the cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.

If a man knew anything, he would sit in a corner and be modest; but he is such an ignorant peacock, that he goes bustling up and down, and hits on extraordinary discoveries.

It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner, when you’re number one. What you got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not a winner.

Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.