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The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.

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
Writing
Much
Life
Drained
Author
Works
Living

More quotes by Samuel Butler

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The history of art is the history of revivals.
Samuel Butler
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The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that you know things, and believing in the Christian religion.
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.
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Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.
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Our own death is a premium which we must pay for the far greater benefit we have derived from the fact that so many people have not only lived but also died before us.
Samuel Butler
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Whereas, to borrow an illustration from mathematics, life was formerly an equation of, say, 100 unknown quantities, it is now one of 99 only, inasmuch as memory and heredity have been shown to be one and the same thing.
Samuel Butler
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Life is not an exact science, it is an art.
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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When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence.
Samuel Butler
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God cannot alter the past, though historians can.
Samuel Butler
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Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.
Samuel Butler
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No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.
Samuel Butler
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Opinions have vested interests just as men have.
Samuel Butler
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I believe that he was really sorry that people would not believe he was sorry that he was not more sorry.
Samuel Butler
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People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.
Samuel Butler
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Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.
Samuel Butler
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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.
Samuel Butler
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In law, nothing is certain but the expense.
Samuel Butler
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Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?
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