Quote

There are two great rules of life the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can, in the end, get what he wants, if he only tries. That is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is, more or less, an exception to the rule.

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
Two
Rule
Ends
Rules
Firsts
General
First
Wants
Great
Particular
Trying
Less
Every
Everyone
Tries
Life
Individual
Exception

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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.
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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 man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.
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He dons are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.
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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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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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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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Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.
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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.
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The oldest books are only just out to those who have not read them.
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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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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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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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Look before you leap for as you sow, ye are like to reap.
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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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A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.
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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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The worst thing that can happen to a man is to lose his money, the next worst his health, the next worst his reputation.
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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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The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.
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