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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
Rather
Abstinence
Half
Moderate
Use
Moderates
Good
Require
World
Seeds
Vices
Total
Condemns
Virtue
Loudly

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Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty, bodily or mental.
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Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?
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We all love best not those who offend us least, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.
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Mr. Tennyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, but he wisely refrains from saying whether they are good or bad things.
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God and the Devil are an effort after specialisation and division of labour.
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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? And by this test I am condemned, for I cannot.
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God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.
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The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.
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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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Prayers are to men as dolls are to children. They are not without use and comfort, but it is not easy to take them very seriously.
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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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If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.
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Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.
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A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.
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A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
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God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.
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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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