Quote

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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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
Write
Condemned
Cannot
Literary
Power
Test
Writing
Cat
Men
Tests
Name
Inscription
Names
Inscriptions
Whether
Kitten

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If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue.
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Adversity, if a man is set down to it by degrees, is more supportable with equanimity by most people than any great prosperity arrived at in a single lifetime.
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People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.
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Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.
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Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime
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The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.
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The oldest books are only just out to those who have not read them.
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Since God himself cannot change the past, He is obliged to tolerate the existence of historians.
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The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.
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Death is only a larger kind of going abroad.
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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.
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A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.
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