Samuel Butler

The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.

An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.

People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.

Logic is like the sword – those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.

Those who have never had a father can at any rate never know the sweets of losing one. To most men the death of his father is a new lease of life.

Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.

All mankind love a lover.

We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.

Better is the enemy of good.

The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men around to his opinion twenty years later.

Understanding is a two-way street.

Truth is the summit of being justice is the application of it to affairs.

Kings in this should imitate God, their mercy should be above their works.

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.

This is the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put.

There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.

No poems can please for long or live that are written by water drinkers.

The quickest way to become troubled is to be concerned with what people are gonna say about your life and your work.