Samuel Butler

Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.

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

I went to the Bach Choir concert and heard Mozart’s Requiem. I did not rise warmly to it. Then I heard an extract from Parsifal which I disliked very much. If Bach wriggles, Wagner writhes…

Then spare the rod and spoil the child.

Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.

Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism.

Old men are dangerous: it doesn’t matter to them what is going to happen to the world.

Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.

Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind and in contradiction, for a time, to the voice of the great and good. Heroism is an obedience to a secret impulse of an individual.

And deep in my heart. The answer, it was in me. And I made up my mind. To define my own destiny.

He is now rising from affluence to poverty.

What you do today can improve all your tomorrows.

A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.

We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.

The true poem is the poet’s mind.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Trust yourself. You’ve survived a lot, and you’ll survive whatever is coming.

Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.

Nature has always had more force than education.

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.

I’m proof against that word failure. I’ve seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.