Samuel Butler

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.

Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in playing.

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.

The thief. Once committed beyond a certain point he should not worry himself too much about not being a thief any more. Thieving is God’s message to him. Let him try and be a good thief.

All truth is not to be told at all times.

Every one is a genius, more or less. No one is so physically sound that no part of him will be even a little unsound, and no one is so diseased but that some part of him will be healthy — so no man is so mentally and morally sound, but that he will be in part both mad and wicked; and no man is so mad and wicked but he will be sensible and honourable in part. In like manner there is no genius who is not also a fool, and no fool who is not also a genius.

Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.

Fear is a useless emotion. Don’t ever make decisions based on fear. Make decisions based on hope and possibility.

Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself.

What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.

I am pretty fearless. You know why? Because I don’t handle fear very well; I’m not a good terrified person.

There’s an old German proverb to the effect that fear makes the wolf bigger than he is,and that is true.

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil; but its duty, like that of other passions, is not to overbear reason, but to assist it. It should not be suffered to tyrannize

I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do

Fear came in so much in my life that it did everything but completely stop me.

Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absense of fear.

Don’t let your fears overwhelm your desire. Let the barriers you face, and there will be barriers, be external, not internal. Fortune does favor the bold, and I promise that you will never know what you’re capable of unless you try.

Don’t ever make decisions based on fear. Make decisions based on hope and possibility. Make decisions based on what should happen, not what shouldn’t.