Samuel Butler

Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.

A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.

To live is like to love – all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.

Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.

Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.

The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.

It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourselves.

Accept your genius and say what you think.

I want to be free; to escape. I use my pen as oars; the paper as my boat. I fill these pages to keep me afloat. I ride the waves of turmoil, so I can paddle away to calmer seas.

It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.

What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground.

We are happier in many ways when we are old than when we were young. The young sow wild oats. The old grow sage.

It’s your life-but only if you make it so.

I am neither of the East nor of the West, no boundaries exist within my breast.

It is not where you start but how high you aim that matters for success.

The miracles of genius always rest on profound convictions which refuse to be analyzed.

There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.

He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.

It’s hard to have it all. And if you’re compromising through one phase of your journey, you’re not giving it all up, you’re compromising for that phase

In every man there is something wherein I may learn of him, and in that I am his pupil.

The only wealth is life.