Samuel Butler Quotes
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To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.
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God cannot alter the past, though historians can.
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God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.
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He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.
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The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt.
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The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions.
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The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.
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The Athanasian Creed is to me light and intelligible reading in comparison with much that now passes for science.
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All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.
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If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.
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The history of art is the history of revivals.
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He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most. God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us.
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Christ: I dislike him very much. Still, I can stand him. What I cannot stand is the wretched band of people whose profession is to hoodwink us about him.
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In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa.
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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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Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.
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Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. If you look at it to admire it, you are lost.
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Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.
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Words are not as satisfactory as we should like them to be, but, like our neighbours, we have got to live with them and must make the best and not the worst of them.
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We shall never get people whose time is money to take much interest in atoms.
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The sinews of art and literature, like those of war, are money.
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If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue.
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Death is only a larger kind of going abroad.
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We all like to forgive, and love best not those who offend us least, nor who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.