Whatso'er we perpetrate We do but row we are steered by fate.
~ Samuel Butler
Friendship is like money easier made than kept.
An apology for the Devil - it must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.
It has been said that though God cannot alter the past historians can - it is perhaps because they can be useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence.
A lawyer's dream of heaven - every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.
We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.
I do not mind lying but I hate inaccuracy.
I reckon being ill is one of the greatest pleasures of life provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better.
What runs through a person like water through a sieve.
Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.
The advantage of doing one's praising to oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
People are lucky and unlucky ... according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.
Our self-conceit sustains and always must sustain us.
The foundations which we would dig about and find are within us like the Kingdom of Heaven rather than without.
Silence is not always tact and it is tact that is golden not silence.
Our latest moment is always our supreme moment. Five minutes delay in dinner now is more important than a great sorrow ten years gone.
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.
A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those worth committing.
Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.
Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.
Self-preservation is the first law of nature.
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.
Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that you know things, and believing in the Christian religion.
People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.
The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.
People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.
God cannot alter the past, though historians can.
The history of art is the history of revivals.
People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.
Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.
The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing.
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.
Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism. Whether it is or is not more efficacious I do not know.
Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
The Bible may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.
