Samuel Butler

"The history of art is the history of revivals."

"Life is not an exact science, it is an art."

"A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg."

"A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends."

"A physician's physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric's divinity has to his power of influencing conduct."

"All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it."

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

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

"In law, nothing is certain but the expense."

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

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

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

"Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?"

"Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it."

"Mr. Tennyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, but he wisely refrains from saying whether they are good or bad things."

"Oaths are but words, and words are but wind."

"Self-preservation is the first law of nature."

"The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way."

"The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion."

"To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead."

"To live is like to love - all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it."

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

"You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it."