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
The sinews of art and literature, like those of war, are money. – Samuel Butler
We all like to forgive, and love best not those who offend us least, nor who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them. – 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
I have the solution to the “problem” of gays in the military: Soldiers who are not afraid of guns, bombs, capture, torture, or death say they are afraid of homosexuals. Clearly, we should not be used as soldiers; we should be used as weapons. – Robert Patrick, Los Angeles, California, letter to the editor, The Advocate, 199