The Note-Books of Samuel Butler

When I am inclined to complain about having worked so many years and taken nothing but debt, though I feel the want of money so continually (much more, doubtless, than I ought to feel it), let me remember that I come in free, gratis, to the work of hundreds and thousands of better men than myself who often were much worse paid than I have been.  If a man’s true self is his karma—­the life which his work lives but which he knows very little about and by which he takes nothing—­let him remember at least that he can enjoy the karma of others, and this about squares the account—­or rather far more than squares it. [1883.]