Samuel Butler

Life is not an exact science, it is an art.

God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.

People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.

There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.

Let us eat and drink neither forgetting death unduly nor remembering it. The Lord hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, etc., and the less we think about it the better.

The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.

The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.

For the most important decisions in your life, trust your intuition, and then work with everything you have, to prove it right.

As the births of living creatures, at first, are ill-shapen: so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.

Of course, money will do after its kind, and will steadily work to unspiritualize and unchurch the people to whom it was bequeathed.

A good conscience is a continual feast.

Neither have they hearts to stay, nor wit enough to run away.

It is a profitable Wisdom to know when we have done enough: Much time and Pains are spared, in not flattering our selves against Probabilities.

Though wisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can be gotten without it.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

For what is love itself, for the one we love best? An enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love.

The more I see the less I know for sure.

A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil that good may come of it.

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.

But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.

I teach that all men are mad.