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Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty, bodily or mental.

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
Goodness
Trying
Men
Bodily
Faculty
Mental

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Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds
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If a man knows not life which he hath seen, how shall he know death, which he hath not seen?
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The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.
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In practice it is seldom very hard to do one's duty when one knows what it is, but it is sometimes extremely difficult to find this out.
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God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.
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A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.
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There should be asylums for habitual teetotalers, but they would probably relapse into teetotalism as soon as they got out.
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It is tact that is golden, not silence.
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Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch a cold on overexposure.
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Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime
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Nobody shoots at Santa Claus.
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Be virtuous and you will be vicious.
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There is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.
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Since God himself cannot change the past, He is obliged to tolerate the existence of historians.
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The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.
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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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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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The only absolute morality is absolute stagnation.
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Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.
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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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