Samuel Butler

Christ was only crucified once and for a few hours. Think of the hundreds of thousands whom Christ has been crucifying in a quiet way ever since.

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.

Birth and death are so closely related that one could not destroy either without destroying the other at the same time. It is extinction that makes creation possible.

The Bible may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

It is our less conscious thoughts and our less conscious actions which mainly mould our lives and the lives of those who spring from us.

Then spare the rod and spoil the child.

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

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

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

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

Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.

Truth isn’t truth.

The truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow. It sometimes causes us difficulties at home and abroad. It is sometimes used by our enemies in attempts to hurt us. But the American people are entitled to it, nonetheless.

The lawyer’s truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.

The truth is that there is nothing noble in being superior to somebody else. The only real nobility is in being superior to your former self.

All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

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.

Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.

Let them look up in the sky then…! if they must be so blind, that cannot see the truth in broad daylight, but must have the whole world in darkness to see the conceit of the stars…

When in doubt tell the truth.