Samuel Butler

You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.

The only living works are those which have drained much of the author’s own life into them.

A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes he sees as the best, and scorns a guide.

The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.

All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.

This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, slow rises worth by poverty depressed.

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

An honest man is always a child.

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

Every burned book enlightens the world.

Failure is success if we learn from it.

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform a million realities.

The future is purchased by the present.

Good poetry seems too simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.

When we direct our thoughts properly, we can control our emotions…

We rarely find anyone who can say he has lived a happy life, and who, content with his life, can retire from the world like a satisfied guest.

Nay, number itself in armies importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage; for, as Virgil saith, It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.

To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.

Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness.

Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely is made for the eye of one who sees.