All animals but men know that the principle business of life is to enjoy it and they do enjoy it as much as man and other circumstances will allow it.
More Quotes from Samuel Butler, the Younger:
The hen is an egg's way of producing another egg.Samuel Butler, the Younger
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.
Samuel Butler, the Younger
Though wisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can it be gotten without it. Gold, or the value of whats equivalent to gold, lies at the root of wisdom, and enters so largely into the very essence of the Holy Ghost that no gold, no Holy Ghost may pass as an axiom.
Samuel Butler, the Younger
... There can be no doubt about faith and not reason being the ultima ratio. Even Euclid, who has laid himself as little open to the charge of credulity as any writer who ever lived, cannot get beyond this. He has no demonstrable first premise. He requires postulates and axioms which transcend demonstration, and without which he can do nothing. His superstructure indeed is demonstration, but his ground his faith. Nor again can he get further than telling a man he is a fool if he persists in differing from him. He says 'which is absurd,' and declines to discuss the matter further. Faith and authority, therefore, prove to be as necessary for him as for anyone else.
Samuel Butler, the Younger
Morality turns on whether the pleasure precedes or follows the pain. Thus it is immoral to get drunk because the headache comes after the drinking, but if the headache came first, and the drunkenness afterwards, it would be moral to get drunk.
Samuel Butler, the Younger
Then he saw also that it matters little what profession, whether of religion or irreligion, a man may make, provided only he follows it outwith charitable inconsistency, and without insisting on it to the bitter end. It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and notin the dogma or want of dogma that the danger lies.
Samuel Butler, the Younger
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I had a great first year and Mr. MacDonald was my biggest supporter. He gave me the encouragement I needed that first year to get my career started on a positive note.
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I think everyone has some fascination with what's outside our existence. It's a constant journey to find the truth.
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