Letters are like wine; if they are sound they ripen with keeping. A man should lay down letters as he does a cellar of wine. – Samuel Butler
Heaven is the work of the best and kindest men and women. Hell is the work of prigs, pedants and professional truth-tellers. The world is an attempt to make the best of Heaven and Hell. – Samuel Butler
Compound for sins they are inclined to by damning those they have no mind to. – Samuel Butler
The public do not know enough to be experts, but know enough to decide between them. – Samuel Butler
Opinions have vested interests just as men have. – Samuel Butler
The world will only, in the end, follow those who have despised as well as served it. – Samuel Butler
Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions. – Samuel Butler
The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore. – Samuel Butler
Youth is like spring, an over-praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits. – Samuel Butler
One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once. – Samuel Butler
In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved. – Samuel Butler
It is immoral to get drunk because the headache comes after the drinking, but if the headache came first and the drunkenness afterwards, it would be moral to get drunk. – Samuel Butler
The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is. – Samuel Butler
A genius can never expect to have a good time anywhere, if he is a genuine article, but America is about the last place in which life will be endurable at all for an inspired writer of any kind. – Samuel Butler
Loyalty is still the same, whether it win or lose the game; true as a dial to the sun, although it be not shined upon. – Samuel Butler
The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust. – Samuel Butler
Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderated use rather than total abstinence. – Samuel Butler
For every why he had a wherefore. – Samuel Butler
I believe that he was really sorry that people would not believe he was sorry that he was not more sorry. – Samuel Butler
Such as take lodgings in a head thats to be let unfurnished. – Samuel Butler
