Samuel Butler

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

The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.

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.

He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.

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

When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to prepare for the long haul, the rise and fall, and let neither define your sense of self.

For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

Some men do as much begrudge others a good name, as they want one themselves: and perhaps that is the reason of it.

If you develop rules, never have more than ten.

Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.

Reading Proust isn’t just reading a book, it’s an experience and you can’t reject an experience.

Every hero becomes a bore at last.

Other men are lenses through which we read our own minds. Each man seeks those of different quality from his own, and such as are good of their kind; that is, he seeks other men, and the rest.

Beauty is the pilot of the young soul.

We must hold a man amenable to reason for the choice of his daily craft or profession. It is not an excuse any longer for his deeds that they are the custom of his trade. What business has he with an evil trade?

To know fulfillment, nourish what is for the belly and not the eye.

These are not dark days: these are great days – the greatest days our country has ever lived.

One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.