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The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.

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
Public
History
Death
World
Frailty
Weakness
Record
Records
Opinion

More quotes by Samuel Butler

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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.
Samuel Butler
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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.
Samuel Butler
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It seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in futurity. The time present is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.
Samuel Butler
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The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
Samuel Butler
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Don't learn to do, but learn in doing.
Samuel Butler
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It is a wise tune that knows its own father, and I like my music to be the legitimate offspring of respectable parents.
Samuel Butler
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Christ was only crucified once and for a few hours. Think of the hundreds of thousands whom Christ has been crucifying in a quiet way ever since.
Samuel Butler
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Business should be like religion and science it should know neither love nor hate.
Samuel Butler
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There are two great rules of life the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can, in the end, get what he wants, if he only tries. That is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is, more or less, an exception to the rule.
Samuel Butler
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From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.
Samuel Butler
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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.
Samuel Butler
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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.
Samuel Butler
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In law, nothing is certain but the expense.
Samuel Butler
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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.
Samuel Butler
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The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.
Samuel Butler
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The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
Samuel Butler
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If God wants us to do a thing, he should make his wishes sufficiently clear. Sensible people will wait till he has done this before paying much attention to him.
Samuel Butler
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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.
Samuel Butler
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We are not won by arguments that we can analyse but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself.
Samuel Butler
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Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have.
Samuel Butler