God cannot alter the past, but historians can. – Samuel Butler
The 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 Butler
An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books. – Samuel Butler
Faith – you can do very little with it, but you can do nothing without it. – Samuel Butler
One of the deepest impulses in man is the impulse to record, – to scratch a drawing on a tusk or keep a diary, to collect sagas and heap cairns. This instinct as to the enduring value of the past is, one might say, the very basis of civilization. – John Jay Chapman, Memories and Milestones