Samuel Butler

Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.

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

From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.

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.

You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.

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

The honest truth is that every day was new, every day was a challenge, every day was starting from a fresh place, and as time went on, over the course of about two years, things became better and better. But I don’t think that there was for me anything like, ‘Ah, this is taking too long’, because ‘long’ didn’t exist. So I see it as a blessing. I have to laugh. I mean there’s no other way to look at it.

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.

It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tost upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to standing upon the vantage ground of truth… and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below.

There is no such source of error as the pursuit of truth.

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.

Tell me anyway–Maybe I can find the truth by comparing the lies.

For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine.

Truth isn’t truth.

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

Do not seek the truth, only cease to cherish your opinions.

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.

History is strewn thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill, but a lie, well told, is immortal.

It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.

It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, ‘Go away, I’m looking for the truth.’ and so it goes away. Puzzling.