Samuel Butler

It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy – but he who has shown the better temper.

Don’t learn to do, but learn in doing. Let your falls not be on a prepared ground, but let them be bona fide falls in the rough and tumble of the world.

He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.

The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.

We are not won by arguments that we can analyze, but by tone and temper; by the manner, which is the man himself.

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.

It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

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.

Perpetual modernness is the measure of merit in every work of art.

The ocean is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder than a Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters, washing the very wharves of our cities and the gardens of our sea-side residences.

Practice is this life, and realization is this life, and this life is revealed right here and now.

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.

Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.

The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him.

To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.

We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together, and if we are to live together we have to talk.

When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation.

He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.

The idea of perfection always gives one a chance to talk without knowing facts.

I often think that men don’t understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always talk about it.