"He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most. God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us."
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Quote collection
Samuel Butler quotes (page 7 of 12)
222 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Nobody shoots at Santa Claus."
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"When you've told someone that you've left them a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once."
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"Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness."
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"The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt."
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"Prayers are to men as dolls are to children."
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"Christ: I dislike him very much. Still, I can stand him. What I cannot stand is the wretched band of people whose profession is to hoodwink us about him."
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"Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well."
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"There is no such source of error as the pursuit of truth."
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"The oldest books are only just out to those who have not read them."
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"They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, "Can he name a kitten?""
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"A drunkard would not give money to sober people. He said they would only eat it, and buy clothes and send their children to school with it."
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"Justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes."
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"Let us eat and drink neither forgetting death unduly nor remembering it. The Lord hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, etc., and the less we think about it the better."
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"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."
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"The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor."
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"Priests are not men of the world; it is not intended that they should be; and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so."
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"There is nothing so unthinkable as thought, unless it be the entire absence of thought."
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"Money is the last enemy that shall never be subdued. While there is flesh there is money or the want of money, but money is always on the brain so long as there is a brain in reasonable order."
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"A lawyer's dream of heaven: every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers."
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