Samuel Butler

Loyalty is still the same, whether it win or lose the game; true as a dial to the sun, although it be not shined upon.

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.

I never knew a writer yet who took the smallest pains with his style and was at the same time readable.

Christ: I dislike him very much. Still, I can stand him. What I cannot stand is the wretched band of people whose profession is to hoodwink us about him.

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions.

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.

Most of us who turn to any subject we love remember some morning or evening hour when we got on a high stool to reach down an untried volume, or sat with parted lips listening to a new talker, or for very lack of books began to listen to the voices within, as the first traceable beginning of our love.

One definition of man is an intelligence served by organs.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.

Words will not fail when the matter is well considered.

We women are always in danger of living too exclusively in the affections; and though our affections are perhaps the best gifts we have, we ought also to have our share of the more independent life — some joy in things for their own sake. It is piteous to see the helplessness of some sweet women when their affections are disappointed — because all their teaching has been, that they can only delight in study of any kind for the sake of a personal love. They have never contemplated an independent delight in ideas as an experience which they could confess without being laughed at. Yet surely women need this defense against passionate affliction even more than men.

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

And when a woman’s will is as strong as the man’s who wants to govern her, half her strength must be concealment.

He is a modest little man who has a good deal to be modest about.

This body of mine is my teacher. This heart of mine, my guide. My dear head struggles to make sense of it all whilst my hands gently remind me to trust and let go.

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.

If there is something to gain and nothing to lose by asking, by all means ask!

Let your character be kept up the very end, just as it began, and so be consistent.

Strivers achieve what dreamers believe.