Samuel Butler

The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.

What is faith but a kind of betting or speculation after all? It should be, I bet that my Redeemer liveth.

If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.

Loyalty is still the same, whether it win or lose the game; true as a dial to the sun, although it be not shined upon.

Classic – A book which people praise and don’t read.

Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him to the public.

Books are the mirrors of the soul.

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.

We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over and actually read a volume of four or five hundred pages.

Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.

I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must lay it down and commence living on its hint… What I began by reading I must finish by acting.

To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any other exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object.

Just the omission of Jane Austen’s books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn’t a book in it.

What can we see, read, acquire, but ourselves. Take the book, my friend, and read your eyes out, you will never find there what I find.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

A multitude of books distracts the mind.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.