Samuel Butler

“The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt.”

“Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.”

“People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.”

“Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.”

“All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.”

“It is seldom very hard to do one's duty when one knows what it is, but it is often exceedingly difficult to find this out.”

“[P]oetry resembles metaphysics: one does not mind one's own, but one does not like anyone else's.”

“There is no true gracefulness which is not epitomized goodness.”

“If life must not be taken too seriously, then so neither must death.”

“Truth might be heroic, but it was not within the range of practical domestic politics.”

“Life is not an exact science, it is an art.”

“Prayers are to men as dolls are to children.”

“All truth is not to be told at all times.”

“There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.”

“One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.”

“A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.”

“The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.”

“The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.”

“It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as truly.”

“Faith - you can do very little with it, but you can do nothing without it.”