Samuel Butler

I went to the Bach Choir concert and heard Mozart’s Requiem. I did not rise warmly to it. Then I heard an extract from Parsifal which I disliked very much. If Bach wriggles, Wagner writhes…

He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most. God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us.

Man is God’s highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.

The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it.

A genius can never expect to have a good time anywhere, if he is a genuine article, but America is about the last place in which life will be endurable at all for an inspired writer of any kind.

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

It is easy to believe we are each waves and forget we are also the ocean.

One who conquers himself is greater than another who conquers a thousand times a thousand on the battlefield.

[on enlightenment] Body and mind dropped off.

Perhaps the most spiritual thing any of us can do is simply to look through our own eyes, see with the eyes of wholeness, and act with integrity and kindness.

When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice. The Bible tells us, ‘How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity.

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.

I adopted the theory of reincarnation when I was 26. I got the idea from a book by Orlando Smith. Until I discovered this theory I was unsettled and dissatisfied-without a compass, so to speak. When I discovered reincarnation it was as if I had found a universal plan. I realized that there was a chance to work out my ideas. Time was no longer limited. I was no longer a slave to the hands of the clock. There was time enough to plan and to create. I wouldn’t give five cents for seeing all the world, because I feel there is nothing in the five continents and on the five seas that I have not somehow seen. Somewhere is a master mind sending brain wave messages to us. There is a Great Spirit. I never did anything by my own volition. I was pushed by invisible forces within and without me. We inherit a native knowledge from a previous existence. Gospel of reincarnation is essence of all knowledge. I do not know where we come from or go to but we accumulate experience. Someday it will be possible to measure the soul. We all retain memories of past lives.

To understand everything is to forgive everything.

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.

We all die unhealed

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

There’s nothing written in the Bible, Old or New testament, that says, If you believe in Me, you ain’t going to have no troubles.

The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is.