Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.

— Samuel Butler

Friendship is like money easier made than kept.

— Samuel Butler

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.

— Samuel Butler

God cannot alter the past, though historians can.

— Samuel Butler

Having, then, once introduced an element of inconsistency into his system, he was far too consistent not to be inconsistent consistently, and he lapsed ere long into an amiable indifferentism which to outward appearance differed but little from the indifferentism …

— Samuel Butler

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

— Samuel Butler

I can generally bear the separation but I don't like the leave-taking.

— Samuel Butler

I do not mind lying but I hate inaccuracy.

— Samuel Butler

If, again, the most superficial introspection teaches the physiologist that his conscious life is dependent upon the mechanical adjustments of his body, and that inversely his body is subjected with certain limitations to his will, then it only remains for him to make one assumption more, namely, that this mutual interdependence between the spiritual and the material is itself also dependent on law, and he has discovered the bond by which the science of the matter and the science of consciousness are united into a single whole.

— Samuel Butler

If life must not be taken too seriously - then so neither must death.

— Samuel Butler