Samuel Butler

There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.

An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better.

Man is God’s highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.

The Bible may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Let us eat and drink neither forgetting death unduly nor remembering it. The Lord hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, etc., and the less we think about it the better.

When the water of a place is bad it is safest to drink none that has not been filtered through either the berry of a grape, or else a tub of malt. These are the most reliable filters yet invented.

Never read any book that is not a year old.

I only desire sincere relations with the worthiest of my acquaintance, that they may give me an opportunity once in a year to speak the truth.

We shall see but little way if we require to understand what we see. How few things can a man measure with the tape of his understanding! How many greater things might he be seeing in the meanwhile!

There was the cell where Fr. Eulalio, a thriving lunatic of eighty-six who was castigating himself for unchristian pride at having all the vowels in his name, and greatly revered for his continuous weeping, went blind in an ecstasy of such howling proportions that his canonization was assured.

If a man’s fortune does not fit him, it is like the shoe in the story; if too large it trips him up, if too small it pinches him.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like as long as somebody loves you.

You and I are essentially infinite choice-makers. In every moment of our existence, we are in that field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices.

Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.

The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.

There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.

Sunday is the core of our civilization, dedicated to thought and reverence.

I am the flame, electric blue, lightening, razor-like, renewing my spirit. Heart beating in time to the earth’s rhythm and expanse of black ink sky, overreaching eternal. My fingertips spark with seeds of creation, fireworks coloring canvas, beckoned by this light that lifts me.

I pay the schoolmaster, but it is the school boys who educate my son.

Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.

A few strong instincts and a few plain rules suffice us.