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

It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.
Samuel Butler

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

It is our less conscious thoughts and our less conscious actions which mainly mould our lives and the lives of those who spring from us.
Samuel Butler

It is seldom very hard to do one's duty when one knows what it is, but it is often exceedingly difficult to find this out.
Samuel Butler

It is tact that is golden, not silence.
Samuel Butler

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

Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.
Samuel Butler

Justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.
Samuel Butler

Let every man be true and every god a liar.
Samuel Butler

Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.
Samuel Butler

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.
Samuel Butler

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.
Samuel Butler

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

Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule.
Samuel Butler

Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
Samuel Butler

Life is not an exact science, it is an art.
Samuel Butler

Life is one long process of getting tired.
Samuel Butler

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
Samuel Butler

Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.
Samuel Butler