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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.

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
Extremely
Obligation
Duty
Practice
Difficult
Find
Hard
Sometimes
Seldom

More quotes by 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.
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A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.
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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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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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We are not won by arguments that we can analyse but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself.
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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.
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Don't learn to do, but learn in doing.
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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.
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There is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.
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Neither have they hearts to stay, nor wit enough to run away.
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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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God cannot alter the past, though historians can.
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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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Life is one long process of getting tired.
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The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.
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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.
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Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.
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Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.
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Life is not an exact science, it is an art.
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Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds
Samuel Butler