Samuel Butler

Parents are the last people on earth who ought to have children.

Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.

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

The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.

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

Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch a cold on overexposure.

Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster.

That’s what I can’t stand. I know I’ll bounce back, and that’s what I can’t stand.

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.

Love is only one of many passions.

Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.

Do not undervalue the headache. While it is at its sharpest it seems a bad investment; but when relief begins, the unexpired remainder is worth $4 a minute.

There are no have-to’s, just choices.

To himself everyone is an immortal. He may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.

If the announcer can produce the impression that he is a gentlemen, he may pronounce as he pleases.

Earth laughs in flowers.

Our faith comes in moments… yet there is a depth in those brief moments which constrains us to ascribe more reality to them than to all other experiences.

Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.

Poetry must be as new as foam and as old as the rock.

The best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.

If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.