Samuel Butler

Opinions have vested interests just as men have.

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.

When the water of a place is bad it is safest to drink none that has not been filtered through either the berry of a grape, or else a tub of malt. These are the most reliable filters yet invented.

Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.

Eating is touch carried to the bitter end.

The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to prepare for the long haul, the rise and fall, and let neither define your sense of self.

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.

The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same kind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

No man acquires property without acquiring with it a little arithmetic also.

Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.

There’s much more stupidity than there is malice in the world.

Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain’t so; it is the sickening grammar that they use.

You cannot dream yourself into a character you must hammer and forge yourself into one.

Suppose the world were only one of God’s jokes, would you work any the less to make it a good joke instead of a bad one?

There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.

To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.

Our virtues are dearer to us the more we have had to suffer for them. It is the same with our children. All profound affection entertains a sacrifice. Our thoughts are often worse than we are, just as they are often better.

It is easy – terribly easy – to shake a man’s faith in himself. To take advantage of that to break a man’s spirit is devil’s work.