Samuel Butler Quotes
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The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.
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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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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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There is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.
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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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Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.
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All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.
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The sinews of art and literature, like those of war, are money.
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He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.
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Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.
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Death is only a larger kind of going abroad.
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God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.
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We shall never get people whose time is money to take much interest in atoms.
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If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.
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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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In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa.
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Let every man be true and every god a liar.
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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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No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.
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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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Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch a cold on overexposure.
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The history of art is the history of revivals.
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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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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.