Samuel Butler

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.

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

Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.

The want of money is the root of all evil.

The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt.

Hatred is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated.

Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.

Youth gets together with their materials to build a bridge to the moon or maybe a palace on earth; then in middle age they decide to build a woodshed with them instead.

Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction,a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the Muse.

Nations! What are nations? Tartars! and Huns! and Chinamen! Like insects they swarm. The historian strives in vain to make them memorable. It is for want of a man that there are so many men. It is individuals that populate the world.

Well, when it comes to social media – there are just times I turn off the world, you know. There are just some times you have to give yourself space to be quiet, which means you’ve got to set those phones down. You can’t be reading all that stuff. I mean, that’s like letting somebody just walk up and slap you, you know? You would never do that. You would never just sit there and go, slap me in the face and I’m good with it. No. So why would you open yourself up to that?

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.

Behave so the aroma of your actions may enhance the general sweetness of the atmosphere.

Half a man’s wisdom goes with his courage.

Usually the modest person passes for someone reserved, the silent for a sullen person

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

I enjoy convalescence. It is the part that makes the illness worth while.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.

People sleep, and when they die they wake.