Samuel Butler

Is life worth living? This is a question for an embryo not for a man.

For Wealth are all things that conduce, to one’s destruction or their use. A standard both to buy and sell, all things from heaven down to hell.

The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.

The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that you know things, and believing in the Christian religion.

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.

If it be an evil to judge rashly or untruly any single man, how much a greater sin it is to condemn a whole people.

Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper.

Even the youngest of us may be wrong sometimes.

A healthy body is a guest chamber for the soul: a sick body is a prison.

The idea of perfection always gives one a chance to talk without knowing facts.

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

By persisting in your path, though you forfeit the little, you gain the great.

O friend, never strike sail to a fear! Come into port greatly, or sail with God the seas.

If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.

We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven has accorded this to us in the uncritical canine attachment.

You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it; for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle.

A good indignation brings out all one’s powers.

Pain never really goes away; you just elevate and get used to it by growing stronger.

Rich men without convictions are more dangerous in modern society than poor women without chastity.

Common sense is the best distributed thing in the world, for we all think we possess a good share of it.