Samuel Butler

People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.

Rare virtues are like rare plants or animals, things that have not been able to hold their own in the world. A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal.

The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.

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

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

The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.

A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza; read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing.

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.

A short letter to a distant friend is, in my opinion, an insult like that of a slight bow or cursory salutation — a proof of unwillingness to do much, even where there is a necessity of doing something.

What is peculiar in the life of a man consists not in his obedience, but his opposition, to his instincts. In one direction or another he strives to live a supernatural life.

If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.

If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.

The power of love, as the basis of a State, has never been tried.

Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.

Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

Use every distraction as an object of meditation and they cease to be distractions.

Pasteboard pies and paper flowers are being banished from the stage by the growth of that power of accurate observation which is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it….

Undeservedly you will atone for the sins of your fathers.

It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.