Samuel Butler

It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy – but he who has shown the better temper.

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

People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.

Logic is like the sword – those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.

It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.

That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.

Plenty of times I wanted to haul off when somebody insulted me for the color of my skin, but I had to hold to myself. I knew I was kind of an experiment. The whole thing was bigger than me.

They teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master.

What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?

Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied.

…with the black marble which gives the fireplace the air of a miniature family vault, to suggest early Victorian commercial respectability, belief in money, Bible fetichism, fear of hell always at war with fear of poverty, instinctive horror of the passionate character of art, love and Roman Catholic religion, and all the first fruits of plutocracy in the early generations of the industrial revolution.

Our planet is being turned into a filthy and evil-smelling imperialist barrack.

Studies serve for delight, for ornaments, and for ability.

If you can’t get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you’d best teach it to dance.

He that has given today may, if he so please, take away tomorrow.

Our thinking and our behaviour are always in anticipation of a response. It is therefore fear-based.

No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.

I am living in a nightmare, from which from time to time I wake in sleep.

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.

Love is only one of many passions.