Samuel Butler

Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it.

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

All truth is not to be told at all times.

He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most. God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us.

The clergyman is expected to be a kind of human Sunday.

To know God better is only to realize how impossible it is that we should ever know him at all. I know not which is more childish to deny him, or define him.

The affairs of the world will go on forever. Do not delay the practice of meditation.

The money men make lives after them.

By common consent of all the nations and all the ages the most valuable thing in this world is the homage of men, whether deserved or undeserved.

It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.

Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.

Ask counsel of both timesof the ancient time what is best, and of the latter time what is fittest.

Shallow people believe in luck and in circumstances; Strong people believe in cause and effect.

Better a broken promise than none at all.

I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as ‘making a life’.

A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

No verse can give pleasure for long, nor last, that is written by drinkers of water.

I believe in the limitlessness of humans. We’re capable of incredible things. At times that realization is frightening.

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same kind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

I at least have so much to do in unraveling certain human lots, and seeing how they were woven and interwoven, that all the light I can command must be concentrated on this particular web, and not dispersed over that tempting range of relevancies called the universe.

He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.