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Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.

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
Wells
Lied
Well
Requires
Men
Fool
Wisdom
Lying
Sense
Tell
Truth

More quotes by Samuel Butler

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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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Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.
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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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In law, nothing is certain but the expense.
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How often do we not see children ruined through the virtues, real or supposed, of their parents?
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A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
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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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To know God better is only to realize how impossible it is that we should ever know him at all. I know not which is more childish to deny him, or define him.
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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.
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Loyalty is still the same, whether it win or lose the game as true as a dial to the sun, although it be not shined upon.
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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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If I die prematurely at any rate I shall be saved from being bored to death by my own success.
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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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[P]oetry resembles metaphysics: one does not mind one's own, but one does not like anyone else's.
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Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.
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Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.
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The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
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Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.
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Christ and The Church: If he were to apply for a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, adultery and desertion, he would probably get one.
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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