Samuel Butler

Opinions have vested interests just as men have.

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.

Don’t learn to do, but learn in doing. Let your falls not be on a prepared ground, but let them be bona fide falls in the rough and tumble of the world.

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.

To live is like to love – all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.

An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better.

To study Buddhism is to study ourselves. To study ourselves is to forget ourselves.

Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

If anything is worth doing, do it with all your heart.

To give pleasure to a single heart by a single kind act is better than a thousand head-bowings in prayer.

We are desire. It is the essence of the human Soul, the secret of our existence. Absolutely nothing of human greatness is ever accomplished without it. Not a symphony has been written, a mountain climbed, an injustice fought, or a love sustained apart from desire. Desire fuels our search for the life we prize. – John Elderidge

The Kingdom of God is Within You,

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

To a brave man, good and bad luck are like his left and right hand. He uses both.

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

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

If God would have wanted us to live in a permissive society He would have given us Ten Suggestions and not Ten Commandments.

Still water has no mind to receive the image of the migrating geese.

Only a spiritual being has awareness.

One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.

Jesus tapped me on the shoulder and said, Bob, why are you resisting me? I said, I’m not resisting you! He said, You gonna follow me? I said, I’ve never thought about that before! He said, When you’re not following me, you’re resisting me.