Samuel Butler

Then spare the rod and spoil the child.

In law, nothing is certain but the expense.

There are two great rules of life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can, in the end get what he wants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is more or less an exception to the general rule.

If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do.

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.

The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.

Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.

Your own safety is at stake when your neighbor’s wall is ablaze.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works and of greatest merit for the public have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question, when a man should marryA young man not yet, an elder man not at all.

The receipts of cookery are swelled to a volume; but a good stomach excels them all.

Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it.

Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely is made for the eye of one who sees.

You can tell a lot about a person by listening to the way they talk about someone they once loved.

Painting was called silent poetry and poetry speaking painting.

Friends are true Twins in Soul; they Sympathize in every thing, and have the Love and Aversion. One is not happy without the other, nor can either of them be miserable alone. As if they could change Bodies, they take their turns in Pain as well as in Pleasure; relieving one another in their most adverse Conditions.What one enjoys, the other cannot Want. Like the Primitive Christians, they have all things in common, and no Property but in one another.

I desire to gain your Love and Friendship by a kind, Just and Peaceful Life.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity, and beauty as conspicuously as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness, and ugliness.

See only that thou work and thou canst not escape the reward.

We are all alike, on the inside.

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’