Samuel Butler

Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.

Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.

There is nothing so unthinkable as thought, unless it be the entire absence of thought.

Every man’s work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.

Because they did not see merit where they should have seen it, people, to express their regret, will go and leave a lot of money to the very people who will be the first to throw stones at the next person who has anything to say and finds a difficulty in getting a hearing.

Union may be strength, but it is mere blind brute strength unless wisely directed.

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

Common people do not pray; they only beg.

Cities give us collision. ‘Tis said, London and New York take the nonsense out of a man.

Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.

There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.

I never worry about action, but only inaction.

Anger is a brief lunacy.

If you are cold, tea will warm you; if you are too heated, it will cool you; If you are depressed, it will cheer you; If you are excited, it will calm you.

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found; and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.

Humility like the darkness, reveals the heavenly lights.

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.