Books want to be born: I never make them. They come to me and insist on being written, and on being such and such. – Samuel Butler
What is faith but a kind of betting or speculation after all? It should be, I bet that my Redeemer liveth. – Samuel Butler
Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. I you look at it to admire it, you are lost. – 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
The ablest writer is only a gardener first, and then a cook: his tasks are, carefully to select and cultivate his strongest and most nutritive thoughts; and when they are ripe, to dress them, wholesomely, and yet so that they may have a relish. – Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers