Samuel Butler Quotes
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All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
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We are not won by arguments that we can analyse but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself.
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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.
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A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.
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The worst thing that can happen to a man is to lose his money, the next worst his health, the next worst his reputation.
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The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.
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I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.
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All truth is not to be told at all times.
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They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, 'Can he name a kitten?'
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The want of money is the root of all evil.
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Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint.
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The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
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A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those worth committing.
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It is seldom very hard to do one's duty when one knows what it is, but it is often exceedingly difficult to find this out.
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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.
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Is life worth living? This is a question for an embryo not for a man.
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Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.
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People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.
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The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.
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In law, nothing is certain but the expense.
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The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
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Parents are the last people on earth who ought to have children.
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The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.
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Faith - you can do very little with it, but you can do nothing without it.