Young people have a marvelous faculty of either dying or adapting themselves to circumstances.
Samuel ButlerThe dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt.
Samuel ButlerMarriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?
Samuel ButlerTheist and atheist: the fight between them is as to whether God shall be called God or shall have some other name.
Samuel ButlerA 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.
Samuel ButlerLying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.
Samuel ButlerChrist was only crucified once and for a few hours. Think of the hundreds of thousands whom Christ has been crucifying in a quiet way ever since.
Samuel ButlerThe dons of Oxford and Cambridge are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.
Samuel ButlerGenius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds
Samuel ButlerA 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.
Samuel ButlerIf people would dare to speak to one another unreservedly, there would be a good deal less sorrow in the world a hundred years hence.
Samuel ButlerMy main wish is to get my books into other people's rooms, and to keep other people's books out of mine.
Samuel ButlerA virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.
Samuel ButlerHalf the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.
Samuel ButlerAutumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.
Samuel ButlerA man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.
Samuel ButlerThey say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, "Can he name a kitten?"
Samuel ButlerAn apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.
Samuel ButlerWhat is faith but a kind of betting or speculation after all? It should be, I bet that my Redeemer liveth.
Samuel ButlerAll progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
Samuel ButlerThe youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it.
Samuel ButlerWords 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.
Samuel ButlerThe only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.
Samuel Butler