Samuel Butler

People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.

For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine.

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.

The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.

A skilful leech is better far, than half a hundred men of war.

Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.

I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from east to west. We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure.

Nothing is too high for the daring of mortals: we storm heaven itself in our folly.

Energy doesn’t lie so trust those vibes you’re getting.

What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.

Well, dinner would have been splendid!

My evening visitors, if they cannot see the clock should find the time in my face.

It is better that some should be unhappy than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

All I want to do is change the world.

Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.

Kings are not born they are made by universal hallucination.

To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.

Be present in all things and thankful for all things.

Wherever there is power there is age.

Whatever limits us we call fate.

Truth is a naked and open daylight.