Samuel Butler

From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.

For most men, and most circumstances, pleasure –tangible material prosperity in this world -is the safest test of virtue. Progress has ever been through the pleasures rather than through the extreme sharp virtues, and the most virtuous have leaned to excess rather than to asceticism.

Self-preservation is the first law of nature.

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

Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.

Because they did not see merit where they should have seen it, people, to express their regret, will go and leave a lot of money to the very people who will be the first to throw stones at the next person who has anything to say and finds a difficulty in getting a hearing.

Sympathy is a supporting atmosphere, and in it we unfold easily and well.

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society, for nothing suffocates the promise of America more than unbounded cynicism and indifference.

Property is an intellectual production. The game requires coolness, right reasoning, promptness, and patience in the players.

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.

No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my own constitution; the only wrong what is against it.

In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment and will never be more divine in the lapse of the ages. Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it, but when I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away but eternity remains.

It’s much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.

What we learn only through the ears makes less impression upon our minds than what is presented to the trustworthy eye.

Exploring the mysteries of myself and the world. Sensual, powerful, wise… on my path…

When one has tasted it Watermelon he knows what the angels eat.

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.