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

Samuel Butler

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Samuel Butler
Age: 66 †
Born: 1835
Born: December 4
Died: 1902
Died: June 18
Farmer
Novelist
Painter
Photographer
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Translator
Writer
Notts
Cellarius
Half
Moderate
Use
Moderates
Good
Require
World
Seeds
Vices
Total
Condemns
Virtue
Loudly
Rather
Abstinence

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A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.
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Friends are like money, easier made than kept.
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Adversity, if a man is set down to it by degrees, is more supportable with equanimity by most people than any great prosperity arrived at in a single lifetime.
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The history of art is the history of revivals.
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Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.
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Nobody shoots at Santa Claus.
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Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions.
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There are two classes [of scientists], those who want to know, and do not care whether others think they know or not, and those who do not much care about knowing, but care very greatly about being reputed as knowing.
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Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.
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Arguments are like fire-arms which a man may keep at home but should not carry about with him.
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The worst thing that can happen to a man is to lose his money, the next worst his health, the next worst his reputation.
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God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.
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No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.
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People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.
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If people would dare to speak to one another unreservedly, there would be a good deal less sorrow in the world a hundred years hence.
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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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A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.
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Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.
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Since God himself cannot change the past, He is obliged to tolerate the existence of historians.
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