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The wish to spread those opinions that we hold conducive to our own welfare is so deeply rooted in the English character that few of us can escape its influence.

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
Opinion
Opinions
Wish
Welfare
Character
Escape
Deeply
Spread
English
Hold
Conducive
Influence
Rooted

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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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God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.
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Business should be like religion and science it should know neither love nor hate.
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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 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.
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Let us eat and drink neither forgetting death unduly nor remembering it. The Lord hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, etc., and the less we think about it the better.
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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 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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The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered.
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Life is not an exact science, it is an art.
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History is a bucket of ashes.
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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.
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If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.
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You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.
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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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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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Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.
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From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.
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The only absolute morality is absolute stagnation.
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Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.
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