Samuel Butler

A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.

Science, after all, is only an expression for our ignorance of our own ignorance.

The world will only, in the end, follow those who have despised as well as served it.

The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.

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.

God cannot alter the past, though historians can.

With the press there is no ‘off the record’.

Contrary to what a lot of people think, I don’t enjoy doing press. I’ve been asked the same questions a million times now, and I don’t particularly like talking about my personal life.

I don’t care what is written about me so long as it isn’t true.

Television enables you to be entertained in your home by people you wouldn’t have in your home.

Television is the first truly democratic culture – the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want.

I think the 24-hour news cycle has helped exaggerate the differences between the parties. You can always find someone on TV somewhere carping about something. That didn’t happen 20 years ago.

I can understand the British media and why they are doing that. It does not add up to much. I’m used in my life to not paying much attention to some things.

People at Facebook are fairly used to the press being nice to us or not nice to us.

One of the more radical and interesting possible ways to limit the power of unaccountable media barons is to give journalists the power to elect editors and have seats on boards for workers and consumers when a title or programme gets particularly large and influential.

One thing I’ve learned about the press is that they’re always hungry for a good story, and the more sensational the better. It’s in the nature of the job, and I understand that. The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous.

I’ve met some great people that deal with me in the press. I’ve also met some people that were very dishonorable, frankly.

It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief.

If you get good ratings, they’ll cover you even if you have nothing to say.

The media is really, the word, I think one of the greatest of all terms I’ve come up with is fake. I guess other people have used it perhaps over the years, but I’ve never noticed it.

When I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don’t invest any energy in them, because I know who I am.