Samuel Butler

The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.

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

Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism.

A man’s friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage – but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.

Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. I you look at it to admire it, you are lost.

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

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

So of cheerfulness, or a good temper, the more it is spent, the more it remains.

If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?

The little may contrast with the great, in painting, but cannot be said to be contrary to it. Oppositions of colors contrast; but there are also colors contrary to each other, that is, which produce an ill effect because they shock the eye when brought very near it.

Sometimes people mistake the way I talk for what I am thinking.

Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.

Every man will be a poet if he can; otherwise a philosopher or man of science. This proves the superiority of the poet.

I enjoy convalescence. It is the part that makes the illness worth while.

A woman’s heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed recipe.

Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

Poor fellow! I think he is in love with you.’ I am not aware of it. And to me it is one of the most odious things in a girl’s life, that there must always be some supposition of falling in love coming between her and any man who is kind to her… I have no ground for the nonsensical vanity of fancying everybody who comes near me is in love with me.

A crime persevered in a thousand centuries ceases to be a crime, and becomes a virtue. This is the law of custom, and custom supersedes all other forms of law.

Branching streams cannot compare to the source.