Samuel Butler

Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.

Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it.

Every man’s work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.

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.

God cannot alter the past, but historians can.

When the righteous man truth away from his righteousness that he hath committed and doeth that which is neither quite lawful nor quite right, he will generally be found to have gained in amiability what he has lost in holiness.

Let us not look east and west for materials of conversation, but rest in presence and unity. A just feeling will fast enough supply fuel for discourse, if speaking be more grateful than silence. When people come to see us, we foolishly prattle, lest we be inhospitable. But things said for conversation are chalk eggs. Don’t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. A lady of my acquaintance said, I don’t care so much for what they say as I do for what makes them say it.

Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.

Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.

Never learn to do anything. If you don’t learn, you will always find someone else to do it for you.

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.

My dear friend, clear your mind of cant [excessive thought]. You may talk as other people do: you may say to a man, Sir, I am your most humble servant. You are not his most humble servant. You may say, These are bad times; it is a melancholy thing to be reserved to such times. You don’t mind the times … You may talk in this manner; it is a mode of talking in Society; but don’t think foolishly.

There is no distinctly American criminal class – except Congress.

Great geniuses have the shortest biographies.

In the long run you hit only what you aim at. Therefore, though you should fail immediately, you had better aim at something high.

The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy. Collect and learn them; they are notable measures of directions for human life; you have much in little; they save time in speaking; and upon occasion may be the fullest and safest answer.

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.

The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.

I think there’s a great beauty to having problems. That’s one of the ways we learn.

Self-realization is effortless. What you are trying to find is what you already are.

Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have.