Samuel Butler

I really do not see much use in exalting the humble and meek; they do not remain humble and meek long when they are exalted.

In law, nothing is certain but the expense.

A physician’s physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric’s divinity has to his power of influencing conduct.

For most men, and most circumstances, pleasure –tangible material prosperity in this world -is the safest test of virtue. Progress has ever been through the pleasures rather than through the extreme sharp virtues, and the most virtuous have leaned to excess rather than to asceticism.

Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.

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

Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay.

Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.

No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.

Best friend, my well-spring in the wilderness!

The pleasure we feel in music springs from the obedience which is in it.

We boast our emancipation from many superstitions; but if we have broken any idols, it is through a transfer of idolatry.

That which builds is better than that which is built.

Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now.

All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

Give me insight into today and you may have the antique and future worlds.

All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.

There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrate to some stroke of the imagination.

Poetry must be as new as foam and as old as the rock.