It is tact that is golden, not silence. – Samuel Butler
Silence is not always tact, but it is tact that is golden, not silence. – Samuel Butler
Then spare the rod and spoil the child. – Samuel Butler
To himself everyone is an immortal. He may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead. – Samuel Butler
Everyone should keep a mental wastepaper basket, and the older he grows, the more things will he promptly consign to it. – Samuel Butler
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income. – Samuel Butler
Birth and death are so closely related that one could not destroy either without destroying the other at the same time. It is extinction that makes creation possible. – Samuel Butler
He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still. – Samuel Butler
Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it. – Samuel Butler
A hen is only a eggs way of making another egg. – Samuel Butler
People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable. – Samuel Butler
A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand. – Samuel Butler
Logic is like the sword – Samuel Butler
A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes he sees as the best, and scorns a guide. – Samuel Butler
The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds. – Samuel Butler
Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism. – Samuel Butler
There are two great rules of life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can, in the end get what he wants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is more or less an exception to the general rule. – Samuel Butler
If there is any moral in Christianity, if there is anything to be learned from it, if the whole story is not profitless from first to last, it comes to this: that a man should back his own opinion against the world s. – Samuel Butler
The clergyman is expected to be a kind of human Sunday. – Samuel Butler
When the water of a place is bad it is safest to drink none that has not been filtered through either the berry of a grape, or else a tub of malt. These are the most reliable filters yet invented. – Samuel Butler
