Samuel Butler

Cheer'd up himself with ends of verse And sayings of philosophers.

Ay me! what perils do environ The man that meddles with cold iron!

Compound for sins they are inclined to, By damning those they have no mind to.

Why should not conscience have vacation As well as other courts o' th' nation?

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.

I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.

Then he saw also that it matters little what profession, whether of religion or irreligion, a man may make, provided only he follows it out with charitable inconsistency, and without insisting on it to the bitter end. It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want of dogma that the danger lies.

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

'Man wants but little here below' but likes that little good-and not too long in coming.

Though wisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can it be gotten without it. Gold, or the value of what's equivalent to gold, lies at the root of wisdom, and enters so largely into the very essence of the Holy Ghost that 'no gold, no Holy Ghost' may pass as an axiom.