Samuel Butler

Heaven is the work of the best and kindest men and women. Hell is the work of prigs, pedants and professional truth-tellers. The world is an attempt to make the best of Heaven and Hell.

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.

An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.

Logic is like the sword

Such as take lodgings in a head that’s to be let unfurnished.

Silence is not always tact, but it is tact that is golden, not silence.

Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.

Wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone.

There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.

Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.

Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience.

Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.

I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself.

You have such strong words at command, that they make the smallest argument seem formidable.

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

Some look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not?

Those who cross the sea change only the climate, not their character.

I don’t let my mouth say nothin’ my head can’t stand.

It’s not given to people to judge what’s right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.

She was taken by surprise at quite how breathtaking the twinkle in her eyes was. She listened and watched attentively, magnetized. As butterflies danced on her lips, her own stomach felt butterflies.

Opinions have vested interests just as men have.