Samuel Butler

Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism.

Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.

People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.

Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.

Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.

If there is any moral in Christianity, if there is anything to be learned from it, if the whole story is not profitless from first to last, it comes to this: that a man should back his own opinion against the world s.

I’m only a beer teetotaler, not a champagne teetotaler.

Why do you hasten to remove anything which hurts your eye, while if something affects your soul you postpone the cure until next year?

Listening to both sides does not necessarily bring about a correct judgment.

The only way to know is to live, learn, and grow.

Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

God hangs the greatest weights upon the smallest wires.

Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.

The person is a poor judge who by an action can be disgraced more in failing than they can be honored in succeeding.

If we do not maintain Justice, Justice will not maintain us.

Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.

Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly.

Labor diligently to increase your property.