Samuel Butler

Logic is like the sword

A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.

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

The money men make lives after them.

A physician’s physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric’s divinity has to his power of influencing conduct.

God cannot alter the past, though historians can.

Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied.

Ahh, that mountain of self-discovery. Every time you have reached the summit, the clouds clear and you see there is still a ways to go. Don’t look up with thoughts of despair; thinking how much further do I have to go?! Take a moment and look back to see how far you have come. Don’t lose sight of your accomplishments, and focus on the continued commitment to self-discovery and development.

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

In all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of dullness.

Originality is a device that untalented people use to impress other untalented people to protect themselves from talented people…

Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.

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

Out of the unconscious lips of babes and sucklings are we satirized.

Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one.

The natural law of inertia: Matter will remain at rest or continue in uniform motion in the same straight line unless acted upon by some external force.

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

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrate to some stroke of the imagination.

Sympathy is a supporting atmosphere, and in it we unfold easily and well.

I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.