Samuel Butler Quotes
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What is faith but a kind of betting or speculation after all? It should be, I bet that my Redeemer liveth.
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All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.
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God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.
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God cannot alter the past, though historians can.
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No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.
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It is tact that is golden, not silence.
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Brigands demand your money or your life; women require both.
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In old times people used to try and square the circle; now they try and devise schemes for satisfying the Irish nation.
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In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa.
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My main wish is to get my books into other people's rooms, and to keep other people's books out of mine.
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The sinews of art and literature, like those of war, are money.
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It is a wise tune that knows its own father, and I like my music to be the legitimate offspring of respectable parents.
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Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
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A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.
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We shall never get people whose time is money to take much interest in atoms.
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Death is only a larger kind of going abroad.
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When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy, the only decent thing to do is die at once.
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There is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.
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If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.
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For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine.
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A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing.
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Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.
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You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.
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Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.