I really do not see much use in exalting the humble and meek; they do not remain humble and meek long when they are exalted.
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The extremes of virtue, like those of vice, should not be even named: firstly, because half the virtue goes when a thing is talked about, and secondly because a sight of the highest peaks of virtue depresses average climbers more than it stimulates them. Those climb best who look not so much upwards as under their feet, with an occasional glance downwards, over their whole journey.
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The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.
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A man may well fear for the permanency of his own original work, but if he has made a readable translation from a great work that is worth translating he may be sure that it will not be lost sight of. I do not say that this consideration led me to try my hand at the Odyssey, for it was not consideration at all but inability to resist the charm of the work that made me do it; but it consoles me on having offered to make a present of my translation to any publisher that will print it, and after trying all the best, finding that not one of them will take the work even on those terms.
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There are two great enemies to the well-being of any art, science, or system with which they are connected — those who despise its technicalities habitually, and those who do not know how, occasionally, to despise them. Of the two these last are the most dangerous, as being the most respectable.
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The test of a good critic is whether he knows when and how to believe on insufficient evidence.
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One of the most fashionable subterfuges nowadays is the demand for more evidence upon points where no more evidence is wanted by a sensible non-combatant. Sneer down existing evidence; demand more facts; say, to save appearances, that no doubt the thing ought to be considered, but be careful to avoid considering it.
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The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.
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One of the chief arts is that of knowing what to neglect, and the more talk increases the more necessary does this art become.
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Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism. Whether it is or is not more efficacious I do not know.
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God. He is like the sun; we come from him and we shall go to him; we owe him all things, but there is no use in praying to him, and it does not matter how much we abuse him.
(Further Selections from The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, 1934).