Samuel Butler
An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.
You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.
The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.
It is tact that is golden, not silence.
It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as truly.
There is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.
There is no such source of error as the pursuit of truth.
The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.
Don't learn to do, but learn in doing. Let your falls not be on a prepared ground, but let them be bona fide falls in the rough and tumble of the world.
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.
The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
Nobody shoots at Santa Claus.
Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.
No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.
The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa.
They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, 'Can he name a kitten?'
Don't learn to do, but learn in doing.Collection: Motivational
Spare the rod and spoil the child.Collection: Children
Business should be like religion and science; it should know neither love nor hate.Collection: Hate
To die completely, a person must not only forget but be forgotten, and he who is not forgotten is not dead.Collection: Death
When the water of a place is bad it is safest to drink none that has not been filtered through either the berry of a grape, or else a tub of malt. These are the most reliable filters yet invented.Collection: Water
I fall asleep in the full and certain hope That my slumber shall not be broken; And that, though I be all-forgetting, Yet shall I not be all-forgotten, But continue that life in the thoughts and deeds of those I have loved.Collection: Death
Prayers are to men as dolls are to children. They are not without use and comfort, but it is not easy to take them very seriously.Collection: Prayer
Man, unlike the animals, has never learned that the sole purpose of life is to enjoy it.Collection: Nature
An obstinate man does not hold opinions, but they hold him; for when he is once possessed with an error, it is, like a devil, only cast out with great difficulty.Collection: Men
Friends are like money, easier made than kept.Collection: Friendship
The foundations which we would dig about and find are within us, like the kingdom of heaven, rather than without.Collection: Heaven
Inspiration is never genuine if it is known as inspiration at the time. True inspiration always steals on a person; its importance not being fully recognized for some time.Collection: Inspirational
Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.Collection: Time
Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom, while discouragement often nips it in the bud.Collection: Teacher
Memory and forgetfulness are as life and death to one another. To live is to remember and to remember is to live. To die is to forget and to forget is to die.Collection: Memories
When people talk of atoms obeying fixed laws, they are either ascribing some kind of intelligence and free will to atoms or they are talking nonsense. There is no obedience unless there is at any rate a potentiality of disobeying.Collection: Science
The public do not know enough to be experts, but know enough to decide between them.Collection: Experts
The course of true anything never does run smooth.Collection: Uplifting
It seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in futurity. The time present is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.Collection: Hope
The extremes of vice and virtue are alike detestable, and absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is.Collection: Men
Flying. Whatever any other organism has been able to do man should surely be able to do also, though he may go a different way about it.Collection: Airplane
Arguments are like fire-arms which a man may keep at home but should not carry about with him.Collection: Home
He that complies against his will, Is of his own opinion still.Collection: Agreement
They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, "Can he name a kitten?"Collection: Writing
Books want to be born: I never make them. They come to me and insist on being written, and on being such and such.Collection: Book
If I die prematurely at any rate I shall be saved from being bored to death by my own success.Collection: Bored
Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.Collection: Inspiring
Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kindsCollection: Genius
[P]oetry resembles metaphysics: one does not mind one's own, but one does not like anyone else's.Collection: Mind
Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise man to be able to sell it.Collection: Wise
Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. I you look at it to admire it, you are lost.Collection: Thinking