Samuel Butler

“Christ and The Church: If he were to apply for a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, adultery and desertion, he would probably get one.”

“People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.”

“Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have.”

“We are not won by arguments that we can analyse but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself.”

“An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.”

“No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.”

“Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.”

“The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.”

“We shall never get people whose time is money to take much interest in atoms.”

“Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism. Whether it is or is not more efficacious I do not know.”

“Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.”

“What is faith but a kind of betting or speculation after all? It should be, I bet that my Redeemer liveth.”

“Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty, bodily or mental.”

“Don't learn to do, but learn in doing. Let your falls not be on a prepared ground, but let them be bona fide falls in the rough and tumble of the world.”

“The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.”

“It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.”

“The dons of Oxford and Cambridge are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.”

“For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine.”

“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.”

“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.”