Samuel Butler

Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderated use rather than total abstinence.

Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?

Though wisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can be gotten without it.

Youth is like spring, an over-praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.

We all like to forgive, and love best not those who offend us least, nor who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.

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

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.

He may justly be numbered among the benefactors of mankind, who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may early be impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to occur habitually to the mind.

People have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can’t fool the neighbors.

Friends, such as we desire, are dreams and fables.

None of the affections have been noted to fascinate and bewitch but envy.

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.

What is there that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man’s breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery! To know that you are walking where none others have walked; that you are beholding what human eye has not seen before; that you are breathing a virgin atmosphere. To give birth to an idea, to discover a great thought – an intellectual nugget, right under the dust of a field that many a brain-plough had gone over before. To find a new planet, to invent a new hinge, to find a way to make the lightning carry your messages. To be the first – that is the idea.

Upon retiring, sleep as if you had entered your last sleep. Upon awakening, leave your bed behind you instantly as if you had cast away a pair of old shoes.

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

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

Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.

Avoid inquisitive persons, for they are sure to be gossips, their ears are open to hear, but they will not keep what is entrusted to them.

Go oft to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.

The worst of charity is that the lives you are asked to preserve are not worth preserving.

It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.