413 Quotes by Samuel Butler

Young as he was, his instinct told him that the best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way - who husbands it too carefully to waste it where it can be dispensed with

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

It is a wise tune that knows its own father, and I like my music to be the legitimate offspring of respectable parents.

Then spare the rod and spoil the child.

A lawyer's dream of heaven: every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.

Eating is touch carried to the bitter end.

We all like to forgive, and love best not those who offend us least, nor who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.

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

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.