Samuel Butler

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.

To himself everyone is an immortal. He may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.

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.

The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.

For every why he had a wherefore.

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…

Let go over a cliff, die completely, and then come back to life – after that you cannot be deceived.

If we could get all religions together on a common purpose-the elimination of jealousies and the things that make men covet another’s belongings, we would be a long way toward the goal of outmoding war, depression and poverty.

If you are unable to find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

I’m essentially agnostic. I don’t have a problem with God. I have a problem with religion. I’ve chosen to live my life without the certainties of religious faith. I think they’re dangerous. Music is something that gives my life value and spiritual solace.

Zen mind is not Zen mind. Throwing away Zen mind is correct Zen mind.

Remembering a wrong is like carrying a burden on the mind.

If you want to climb a mountain, begin at the top.

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

What about Jesus Christ? I say that he was a precursor of idealists; a precursor of socialists.

Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.

A mind committed to compassion is like an overflowing reservoir – a constant source of energy, determination and kindness.

Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?

Adam was the luckiest man; he had no mother-in-law.

Our God is a forgiving God.