Samuel Butler Quotes

Only the old are innocent. That is what the Victorians understood, and the Christians. Original sin is a property of the young. The old grow beyond corruption very quickly.

Bad company corrupts good character.

Every harlot was a virgin once.

To abstain from sin when one can no longer sin is to be forsaken by sin, not to forsake it.

Every life is a march from innocence, through temptation, to virtue or vice.

To say of shame - what is it? Of virtue - we can miss it; Of sin-we can kiss it, And it's no longer sin.

The better day, the worse deed.

Then I proceeded to Williamsburg, where I found all well. I went to the capitol where I sent for the wench to clean my room and when I came I kissed her and felt her, for which God forgive me.... About 10 o’clock I went to my lodgings. I had good health but wicked thoughts, God forgive me.

Evil is tolerable if purged of coarseness.

Evil comes in many forms, and whether you are male or female, that doesn't matter as much as what lurks in your mind.

Sex is not sinful, but sin has perverted it.

The devil is busy and trying to distort and adulterate the things that are the pure essence of God.

For shameful deeds are taught by shameful deeds.

Perhaps the old monks were right when they tried to root love out; perhaps the poets are right when they try to water it. It is a blood-red flower, with the color of sin; but there is always the scent of a god about it.

Oh, this base heart of ours! Hath it not enough tinder in it to set on fire the course of nature? If a spark do but fall into it, any one of our members left to itself would dishonour Christ, deny the Lord that bought us, and turn back into perdition.

I do wash my hands in innocency, before God and the face of you, good Christian people this day.

No evil is honorable: but death is honorable; therefore death is not evil.

The custom of sinning takes away the sense of it, the course of the world takes away the shame of it.

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

I'm Jewish. I've always had a thing where it's okay to dance with the devil, just don't become the devil. Even at my peak, I never went too over the top.

If it were possible to have a life absolutely free from every feeling of sin, what a terrifying vacuum it would be.

The starting point of sanctification is the filthiness, corruption, or stain of sin.

We live in a world that is filled with filth and sleaze, a world that reeks of evil. You cannot afford that filthy poison to touch you. Stay away from it. Avoid it.

The truth doesn't lie. It's up in your face. It's in your conscience. It challenges your very being with the intention of cleaning you of sin and its influence.

Evil is always possible. Goodness is a difficulty.