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“The limits of the body seem well defined enough as definitions go, but definitions seldom go far.”

Samuel Butler

Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)

“I could hardly avoid a sort of suspicion that some of those whom I was taken to see had been so long engrossed in their own study of hypothetics that they had become the exact antitheses of the Athenians in the days of St. Paul; for whereas the Athenians spent their lives in nothing save to see and to hear some new thing, there were some here who seemed to devote themselves to the avoidance of every opinion with which they were not perfectly familiar, and regarded their own brains as a sort of sanctuary, to which if an opinion had once resorted, none other was to attack it.”

Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 22

“To himself every one is an immortal: he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.”

Samuel Butler

Ignorance of Death
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XXIII - Death

“It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as truly.”

Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 20

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

Samuel Butler

Supreme Occasions
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XVII - Material for a Projected Sequel to Alps and Sanctuaries

“I felt comparatively happy, but I can assure the reader that I had had a far worse time of it than I have told him; and I strongly recommend him to remain in Europe if he can; or, at any rate, in some country which has been explored and settled, rather than go into places where others have not been before him. Exploring is delightful to look forward to and back upon, but it is not comfortable at the time, unless it be of such an easy nature as not to deserve the name.”

Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 4

“This poem [The Ancient Mariner] would not have taken so well if it had been called “The Old Sailor.””

Samuel Butler

The Ancient Mariner
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XV - Titles and Subjects

“One great reason why clergymen’s households are generally unhappy is because the clergyman is so much at home or close about the house.”

Samuel Butler book The Way of All Flesh

Source: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 24

“If we are asked what is the most essential characteristic that underlies this word, the word itself will guide us to gentleness, to absence of such things as brow-beating, overbearing manners and fuss, and generally to consideration for other people.”

Samuel Butler

Gentleman
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part II - Elementary Morality

“The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.”

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler's Notebooks http://books.google.com/books?id=cjk3AAAAIAAJ&q="The+most+important+service+rendered+by+the+press+and+the+magazines+is+that+of+educating+people+to+approach+printed+matter+with+distrust" (1951)

“It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something.”

Samuel Butler

Hating
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy

“Silence,” it has been said by one writer, “is a virtue which renders us agreeable to our fellow-creatures.”

Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 23

“But I did not yield at once; I enjoyed the process of being argued with too keenly to lose it by a prompt concession; besides, a little hesitation rendered the concession itself more valuable.”

Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 16

“To me it seems that those who are happy in this world are better and more lovable people than those who are not.”

Samuel Butler book The Way of All Flesh

Source: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 26

“Dullness is so much stronger than genius because there is so much more of it, and it is better organised and more naturally cohesive.”

Samuel Butler

Genius, iv
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XI - Cash and Credit

“Nothing is so cruel as to try and force a man beyond his natural pace.”

Samuel Butler

Capping a Success
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part X - The Position of a HomoUnius Libri

“It is far safer to know too little than too much. People will condemn the one, though they will resent being called upon to exert themselves to follow the other.”

Samuel Butler book The Way of All Flesh

Source: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 5

“Slugs have ridden their contempt for defensive armour as much to death as the turtles their pursuit of it. They have hardly more than skin enough to hold themselves together; they court death every time they cross the road. Yet death comes not to them more than to the turtle, whose defences are so great that there is little left inside to be defended. Moreover, the slugs fare best in the long run, for turtles are dying out, while slugs are not, and there must be millions of slugs all over the world over for every single turtle.”

Samuel Butler

Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)

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

Samuel Butler

Further Extracts from the Note-Books of Samuel Butler http://books.google.pt/books?id=zltaAAAAMAAJ&q=%22A+lawyer's+dream+of+heaven:%22&dq=%22A+lawyer's+dream+of+heaven:%22&hl=pt-PT&sa=X&ei=_LPRUvmtGa_b7AbdjoCADQ&ved=0CFgQ6AEwBjgK, compiled and edited by ‎A.T. Bartholomew (1934), p. 27

“Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.”

Samuel Butler

Falsehood, iii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIX - Truth and Convenience