Samuel Butler

“To know God better is only to realize how impossible it is that we should ever know him at all. I know not which is more childish to deny him, or define him.”

“Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.”

“People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.”

“A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those worth committing.”

“A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.”

“Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions.”

“God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.”

“If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.”

“The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.”

“It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy - but he who has shown the better temper.”

“The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt.”

“Christ was only crucified once and for a few hours. Think of the hundreds of thousands whom Christ has been crucifying in a quiet way ever since.”

“A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.”

“Morality is the custom of one's country and the current feeling of one's peers.”

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing.”

“In old times people used to try and square the circle; now they try and devise schemes for satisfying the Irish nation.”

“Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.”

“A physician's physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric's divinity has to his power of influencing conduct.”

“There is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.”

“The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.”