Samuel Butler

Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.

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

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

It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as truly.

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

The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.

Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.

There’s much more stupidity than there is malice in the world.

You will know (the good from the bad) when you are calm, at peace. Passive.

Never, my dear Sir, do you take it into your head that I do not love you; you may settle yourself in full confidence both of my love and my esteem; I love you as a kind man, I value you as a worthy man, and hope in time to reverence you as a man of exemplary piety.

Do you know that the tendrils of graft and corruption have become mighty interlacing roots so that even men who would like to be honest are tripped and trapped by them?

Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.

Why should we be cowed by the name of Action?

We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a belly-full of words and do not know a thing. The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means of education.

Every man passes his life in the search after friendship.

Between us, we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known and I know the rest.

Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.

Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.

He gains everyone’s approval who mixes the pleasant with the useful.

Perhaps his might be one of the natures where a wise estimate of consequences is fused in the fires of that passionate belief which determines the consequences it believes in.

Nothing makes a man so selfish as work.