Samuel Butler

The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.

No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.

When you’ve told someone that you’ve left them a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.

Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint.

Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.

A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.

If you try to please everybody, somebody’s not going to like it.

Our strength grows out of our weakness.

Courage is exhilarating.

The human soul, by once suffering as much as it is capable of, purchases a strange and terrible immunity to all the rest of life’s sorrows.

The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.

The best effort of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence.

It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in want of money. It is clear, they have not value for what they spend.

If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find we have lost the future.

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

If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill came always together, who would escape hanging?

The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue.

A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.

The education of the will is the object of our existence.

Arguments are like fire-arms which a man may keep at home but should not carry about with him.