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  ...whom people generally call a very clever one, who, when his eye catches mine, if I meet him at an at home or an evening party, beams upon me from afar with the expression of an intellectual rattlesnake on having espied an intellectual rabbit. Through any crowd that man will come sidling towards me, ruthless and irresistible as fate; while I, foreknowing my doom, sidle also him- wards, and flatter myself that no sign of my inward apprehension has escaped me.
Supreme Occasions
Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions.   I knew of an old gentleman who insisted on having the original polka played to him as he lay upon his death-bed. In the only well-authenticated words I have ever met with as spoken by a man who knew he was going to be murdered, there is a commonness which may almost be called Shakespearean. There had been many murders on or near some gold- fields in New Zealand about the years 1863 or 1864, I forget where but I think near the Nelson gold-fields, and at last the murderers were taken. ...   Butler, Samuel

Excerpt from The Note-Books of Samuel Butler · This quote is about banality · Search on Google Books to find all references and sources for this quotation.

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