Quotation by Samuel Butler

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Ernest Pontifex, or The Way of All Flesh Houghton Mifflin (1964)Genuine Remains in Verse and Prose (1759)Hudibras (1663)Hudibras Hudibras (1663-1678)

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For most men, and most circumstances, pleasure—tangible material prosperity in this world—is the safest test of virtue. Progress has ever been through the pleasures rather than through the extreme sharp virtues, and the most virtuous have leaned to excess rather than to asceticism.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler (1835–1902), British author. The Way of All Flesh, ch. 19 (1903).

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