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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

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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
Memories
Borrow
Science
Equations
Thing
Quantity
Inasmuch
Life
Shown
Heredity
Whereas
Quantities
Unknown
Formerly
Mathematics
Equation
Memory
Illustration

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It is tact that is golden, not silence.
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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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God and the Devil are an effort after specialisation and division of labour.
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History is a bucket of ashes.
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It is a wise tune that knows its own father, and I like my music to be the legitimate offspring of respectable parents.
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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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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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The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that you know things, and believing in the Christian religion.
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It is death, and not what comes after death, that men are generally afraid of.
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Life is not an exact science, it is an art.
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The only absolute morality is absolute stagnation.
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An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.
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Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch a cold on overexposure.
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The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
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Death is only a larger kind of going abroad.
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We all love best not those who offend us least, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.
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Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
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Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
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Our own death is a premium which we must pay for the far greater benefit we have derived from the fact that so many people have not only lived but also died before us.
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