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
It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy — but he who has shown the better temper. – Samuel Butler
Every mans work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself. – Samuel Butler
Piety and corruption go together like hot dogs and mustard. They have to. No one can fulfill the demands of piety; as a daily demand, it is inhuman. So it inspires the opposite—just for the sheer health of the body, if not the soul. – Norman Mailer, “Primitive Man, Art and Science, Evil and Judgment,” The Spooky A