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Home
Authors
Samuel Butler
British
Poet
About the author
A physician's physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric's divinity has to his power of influencing conduct.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Power
#Divinity
#Healing
A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Forget
#Friend
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
A lawyer's dream of heaven: every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Man
#Dream
#Property
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Want
#Knowledge
A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Will
#Man
#Friends
#Marriage
A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those worth committing.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Will
#Man
#Sense
#Worth
#Humor
A skilful leech is better far, than half a hundred men of war.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#War
#Men
A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Virtue
#Gold
A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Man
#Culture
#First
#Suspicion
A drunkard would not give money to sober people. He said they would only eat it, and buy clothes and send their children to school with it.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#People
#Children
#Money
#School
#Clothes
Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Work
#Men
#Sin
#Idleness
You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Nothing
#Faith
Young people have a marvelous faculty of either dying or adapting themselves to circumstances.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#People
#Circumstances
#Dying
Words are not as satisfactory as we should like them to be, but, like our neighbours, we have got to live with them and must make the best and not the worst of them.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Words
I never knew a writer yet who took the smallest pains with his style and was at the same time readable.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Time
#Style
#Writer
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.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Reason
If I die prematurely I shall be saved from being bored to death at my own success.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Success
#Death
#Being
If life must not be taken too seriously, then so neither must death.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Life
#Death
If people would dare to speak to one another unreservedly, there would be a good deal less sorrow in the world a hundred years hence.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#People
#Years
#World
#Sorrow
If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Virtue
If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
If God wants us to do a thing, he should make his wishes sufficiently clear. Sensible people will wait till he has done this before paying much attention to him.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#God
#People
#Will
#Attention
#Wishes
In law, nothing is certain but the expense.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Nothing
#Law
In old times people used to try and square the circle; now they try and devise schemes for satisfying the Irish nation.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Now
#People
#Old
#Nation
#Irish
In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Virtue
#Vice
Is life worth living? This is a question for an embryo not for a man.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Life
#Man
#Question
#Living
#Worth
God cannot alter the past, though historians can.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#God
#Past
#Historians
It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy, the only decent thing to do is die at once.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as truly.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Want
#Love
#Evil
#Money
It is a wise tune that knows its own father, and I like my music to be the legitimate offspring of respectable parents.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Parents
#Music
#Father
It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy - but he who has shown the better temper.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Temper
#Controversy
Nobody shoots at Santa Claus.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Santa claus
Money is the last enemy that shall never be subdued. While there is flesh there is money or the want of money, but money is always on the brain so long as there is a brain in reasonable order.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Want
#Enemy
#Money
#Order
Parents are the last people on earth who ought to have children.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#People
#Children
#Earth
#Parents
Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Want
#Clothes
Our ideas are for the most part like bad sixpences, and we spend our lives trying to pass them on one another.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Ideas
#Trying
Opinions have vested interests just as men have.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Men
#Opinions
It is our less conscious thoughts and our less conscious actions which mainly mould our lives and the lives of those who spring from us.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Actions
#Thoughts
#Spring
Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Words
#Wind
It is seldom very hard to do one's duty when one knows what it is, but it is often exceedingly difficult to find this out.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Duty
No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Logic
#Mistake
Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Argument
#Irony
#Sarcasm
My main wish is to get my books into other people's rooms, and to keep other people's books out of mine.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#People
#Books
Mr. Tennyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, but he wisely refrains from saying whether they are good or bad things.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Saying
#World
#Dreams
#Prayer
Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Life
#People
God and the Devil are an effort after specialization and the division of labor.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#God
#Labor
#Effort
#Devil
One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Man
#First
#Fighting
Let us eat and drink neither forgetting death unduly nor remembering it. The Lord hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, etc., and the less we think about it the better.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Will
#Death
#Mercy
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Life
#Art
Life is one long process of getting tired.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Life
Life is not an exact science, it is an art.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Life
#Art
#Science
Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Life
#Public
#Learning
Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Life
#Feeling
#Instinct
#Music
People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#People
#Company
Letters are like wine; if they are sound they ripen with keeping. A man should lay down letters as he does a cellar of wine.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Man
#Sound
#Letters
#Wine
Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty, bodily or mental.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Men
#Goodness
Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Appearance
Let every man be true and every god a liar.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#God
#Man
Justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Innocence
#Justice
Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Being
#Injustice
It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Virtue
#Vice
It is tact that is golden, not silence.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Silence
#Tact
Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Character
#Life
Death is only a larger kind of going abroad.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Death
Morality is the custom of one's country and the current feeling of one's peers.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Feeling
#Country
#Custom
#Morality
Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Fear
#Hearing
Faith - you can do very little with it, but you can do nothing without it.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Nothing
#Faith
Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Evil
#Water
Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Work
#Architecture
#Man
#Music
#Literature
Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Money
#Friendship
Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Will
#Day
#Trouble
#Tomorrow
From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Right
#Being
#Mistake
Christ: I dislike him very much. Still, I can stand him. What I cannot stand is the wretched band of people whose profession is to hoodwink us about him.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#People
#Profession
Christ was only crucified once and for a few hours. Think of the hundreds of thousands whom Christ has been crucifying in a quiet way ever since.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Christ
#Quiet
Christ and The Church: If he were to apply for a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, adultery and desertion, he would probably get one.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Christ
#Cruelty
#Divorce
#Adultery
Brigands demand your money or your life; women require both.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Life
#Money
#Women
Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Books
Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Belief
#Body
Don't learn to do, but learn in doing. Let your falls not be on a prepared ground, but let them be bona fide falls in the rough and tumble of the world.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#World
I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Mind
#Hate
#Lying
Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Men
Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Thought
#Marriage
#Heaven
Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#State
#Man
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Man
#Victims
Man is God's highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#God
#Man
#Present
#Development
For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Truth
#Swine
Look before you leap for as you sow, ye are like to reap.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
Be virtuous and you will be vicious.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Will
Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Life
#Dew
He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Will
#Opinion
He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most. God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Life
#God
#Will
#Care
Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#World
#Vices
#Abstinence
God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#God
#Work
God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Now
#God
Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Respect
#Lie
#Superiority
#Lying
#Compliment
The Athanasian Creed is to me light and intelligible reading in comparison with much that now passes for science.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Now
#Science
#Light
#Reading
They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, 'Can he name a kitten?'
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Man
#Power
#Literary
#Name
There is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#May
#Evil
There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Nothing
#Death
#Man
There is nothing so unthinkable as thought, unless it be the entire absence of thought.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Nothing
#Thought
#Absence
There is no true gracefulness which is not epitomized goodness.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Goodness
All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Home
#Nonsense
The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Old
To give pain is the tyranny; to make happy, the true empire of beauty.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Beauty
#Pain
#Tyranny
The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Lying
The Bible may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Nothing
#Bible
#May
#Truth
The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Doubt
The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Virtue
#Vice
Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#People
#Common sense
All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Life
#Man
#Business
#Animals
There is no such source of error as the pursuit of truth.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Truth
#Error
#Pursuit
We all like to forgive, and love best not those who offend us least, nor who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Love
Those who have never had a father can at any rate never know the sweets of losing one. To most men the death of his father is a new lease of life.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Life
#Death
#Men
#Losing
#Father
Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Logic
When you've told someone that you've left them a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. I you look at it to admire it, you are lost.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Work
#Enemy
When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Will
#Years
#Man
#Writing
#Doubt
What is faith but a kind of betting or speculation after all? It should be, I bet that my Redeemer liveth.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Faith
Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Misleading
We are not won by arguments that we can analyse but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Man
#Arguments
#Temper
To die is but to leave off dying and do the thing once for all.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Dying
Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in playing.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Virtue
#Trifle
#Compromise
Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism. Whether it is or is not more efficacious I do not know.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Medical
To live is like to love - all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Love
#Reason
#Instinct
To know God better is only to realize how impossible it is that we should ever know him at all. I know not which is more childish to deny him, or define him.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#God
To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#May
The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Will
#May
#Pleasure
#Fool
We shall never get people whose time is money to take much interest in atoms.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Time
#People
#Money
#Interest
#Atoms
The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Man
#Money
#Opinions
#Religious
The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Man
The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#People
#Press
#Service
#Distrust
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Progress
#Desire
#Income
The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Nothing
#Man
#Conviction
The dons of Oxford and Cambridge are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Men
The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that you know things, and believing in the Christian religion.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Want
#Family
#Money
#Religion
#Christian
#Health
#Temper
#Chastity
The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Public
#Death
#World
#History
#Opinion
#Weakness
#Public opinion
The sinews of art and literature, like those of war, are money.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Art
#War
#Money
#Literature
The oldest books are only just out to those who have not read them.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Books
The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Ignorance
#Pride
#Vanity
#Arrogance
The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Voice
#Common sense
The want of money is the root of all evil.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Want
#Evil
#Money
The worst thing that can happen to a man is to lose his money, the next worst his health, the next worst his reputation.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Man
#Money
#Health
#Reputation
The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Art
#Youth
#Evil
#Knowledge
#Care
Theist and atheist: the fight between them is as to whether God shall be called God or shall have some other name.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#God
#Fight
#Name
There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#World
#Fools
There is no bore like a clever bore.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Man
#Sense
#Truth
#Lie
#Fool
All truth is not to be told at all times.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Truth
An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#God
#Books
#Apology
The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Life
#Living
And so there is no God but has been in the loins of past gods.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#God
#Past
#Gods
The history of art is the history of revivals.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Art
#History
People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#People
People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#People
#Being
#Thought
#Care
#Taste
Women can stand a beating except when it is with their own weapons.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Weapons
#Women
Priests are not men of the world; it is not intended that they should be; and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#World
#Men
#Training
#University
Self-preservation is the first law of nature.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Law
#First
#Self
#Nature
Silence and tact may or may not be the same thing.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#May
#Silence
#Tact
Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch a cold on overexposure.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Love
#Fear
#Men
#Truth
The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Right
The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#Nothing
#Conservative
People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.
Samuel Butler,
British
Poet
#People
#Religion
#Hearing
#Christian