Samuel Butler

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

Silence is not always tact, but it is tact that is golden, not silence.

He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.

One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.

The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.

Logic is like the sword

Whether the flower looks better in the nosegay than in the meadow where it grew and we had to wet our feet to get it! Is the scholastic air any advantage?

By indignities men come to dignities.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good;be good for something.All fables, indeed, have their morals; but the innocent enjoy the story. Let nothing come between you and the light. Respect men and brothers only. When you travel to the Celestial City, carry no letter of introduction. When you knock, ask to see God,

As soon as there is life there is danger.

It was prettily devised of Aesop, The fly sat on the axle tree of the chariot wheel and said, what dust do I raise!

The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn’t need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder – in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever.

I’ll tell you why yes, because why people lie is, because when people stop lying you know they’ve stopped caring.

Earth laughs in flowers.

Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide.

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.

There is no distinctly American criminal class – except Congress.

Knowledge comes by eyes always open and working hands; and there is no knowledge that is not power.

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity: no really self-respecting woman would take advantage of it.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.