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He is greatest who is most often in men's good thoughts.

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
Greatest
Often
Good
Men
Greatness
Thoughts

More quotes by Samuel Butler

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The oldest books are only just out to those who have not read them.
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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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A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.
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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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There is a photographer in every bush, going about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
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You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.
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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.
Samuel Butler
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Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have.
Samuel Butler
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When people talk of atoms obeying fixed laws, they are either ascribing some kind of intelligence and free will to atoms or they are talking nonsense. There is no obedience unless there is at any rate a potentiality of disobeying.
Samuel Butler
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A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.
Samuel Butler
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Since God himself cannot change the past, He is obliged to tolerate the existence of historians.
Samuel Butler
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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.
Samuel Butler
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Young people have a marvelous faculty of either dying or adapting themselves to circumstances.
Samuel Butler
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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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People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.
Samuel Butler
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The extremes of vice and virtue are alike detestable, and absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is.
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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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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Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.
Samuel Butler
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There should be asylums for habitual teetotalers, but they would probably relapse into teetotalism as soon as they got out.
Samuel Butler