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Samuel Butler

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165 Quotes by Samuel Butler

  1. 1.

    A hen is only an egg’s way of making another egg.

    Samuel Butler

  2. 2.

    There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.

    Samuel Butler

  3. 3.

    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

  4. 4.

    Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions.

    Samuel Butler

  5. 5.

    The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.

    Samuel Butler

  6. 6.

    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

  7. 7.

    Life is one long process of getting tired.

    Samuel Butler

  8. 8.

    In old times people used to try and square the circle; now they try and devise schemes for satisfying the Irish nation.

    Samuel Butler

  9. 9.

    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

  10. 10.

    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

  11. 11.

    It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.

    Samuel Butler

  12. 12.

    Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty, bodily or mental.

    Samuel Butler

  13. 13.

    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

  14. 14.

    There is no true gracefulness which is not epitomized goodness.

    Samuel Butler

  15. 15.

    If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue.

    Samuel Butler

  16. 16.

    Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.

    Samuel Butler

  17. 17.

    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

  18. 18.

    Brigands demand your money or your life; women require both.

    Samuel Butler

  19. 19.

    For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine.

    Samuel Butler

  20. 20.

    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

  21. 21.

    Justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.

    Samuel Butler

  22. 22.

    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

  23. 23.

    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

  24. 24.

    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

  25. 25.

    Self-preservation is the first law of nature.

    Samuel Butler

  26. 26.

    No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.

    Samuel Butler

  27. 27.

    It is tact that is golden, not silence.

    Samuel Butler

  28. 28.

    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

  29. 29.

    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

  30. 30.

    To give pain is the tyranny; to make happy, the true empire of beauty.

    Samuel Butler

  31. 31.

    There is nothing so unthinkable as thought, unless it be the entire absence of thought.

    Samuel Butler

  32. 32.

    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

  33. 33.

    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

  34. 34.

    Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.

    Samuel Butler

  35. 35.

    The Bible may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

    Samuel Butler

  36. 36.

    Morality is the custom of one’s country and the current feeling of one’s peers.

    Samuel Butler

  37. 37.

    Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.

    Samuel Butler

  38. 38.

    In law, nothing is certain but the expense.

    Samuel Butler

  39. 39.

    People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.

    Samuel Butler

  40. 40.

    The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.

    Samuel Butler

  41. 41.

    Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.

    Samuel Butler

  42. 42.

    The sinews of art and literature, like those of war, are money.

    Samuel Butler

  43. 43.

    The oldest books are only just out to those who have not read them.

    Samuel Butler

  44. 44.

    There is no such source of error as the pursuit of truth.

    Samuel Butler

  45. 45.

    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

  46. 46.

    God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.

    Samuel Butler

  47. 47.

    To live is like to love – all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.

    Samuel Butler

  48. 48.

    It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.

    Samuel Butler

  49. 49.

    Silence and tact may or may not be the same thing.

    Samuel Butler

  50. 50.

    A skilful leech is better far, than half a hundred men of war.

    Samuel Butler

  51. 51.

    Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.

    Samuel Butler

  52. 52.

    The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.

    Samuel Butler

  53. 53.

    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

  54. 54.

    Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.

    Samuel Butler

  55. 55.

    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

  56. 56.

    Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.

    Samuel Butler

  57. 57.

    In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa.

    Samuel Butler

  58. 58.

    He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.

    Samuel Butler

  59. 59.

    All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.

    Samuel Butler

  60. 60.

    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

  61. 61.

    Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.

    Samuel Butler

  62. 62.

    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

  63. 63.

    The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt.

    Samuel Butler

  64. 64.

    To die is but to leave off dying and do the thing once for all.

    Samuel Butler

  65. 65.

    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

  66. 66.

    People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.

    Samuel Butler

  67. 67.

    What is faith but a kind of betting or speculation after all? It should be, I bet that my Redeemer liveth.

    Samuel Butler

  68. 68.

    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

  69. 69.

    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

  70. 70.

    A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing.

    Samuel Butler

  71. 71.

    There is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.

    Samuel Butler

  72. 72.

    God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.

    Samuel Butler

  73. 73.

    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

  74. 74.

    There is no bore like a clever bore.

    Samuel Butler

  75. 75.

    The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.

    Samuel Butler

  76. 76.

    All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.

    Samuel Butler

  77. 77.

    Logic is like the sword – those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.

    Samuel Butler

  78. 78.

    Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.

    Samuel Butler

  79. 79.

    The Athanasian Creed is to me light and intelligible reading in comparison with much that now passes for science.

    Samuel Butler

  80. 80.

    The want of money is the root of all evil.

    Samuel Butler

  81. 81.

    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

  82. 82.

    All truth is not to be told at all times.

    Samuel Butler

  83. 83.

    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

  84. 84.

    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

  85. 85.

    If life must not be taken too seriously, then so neither must death.

    Samuel Butler

  86. 86.

    God and the Devil are an effort after specialization and the division of labor.

    Samuel Butler

  87. 87.

    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

  88. 88.

    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

  89. 89.

    Death is only a larger kind of going abroad.

    Samuel Butler

  90. 90.

    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

  91. 91.

    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

  92. 92.

    A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.

    Samuel Butler

  93. 93.

    I never knew a writer yet who took the smallest pains with his style and was at the same time readable.

    Samuel Butler

  94. 94.

    Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.

    Samuel Butler

  95. 95.

    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

  96. 96.

    You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.

    Samuel Butler

  97. 97.

    Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.

    Samuel Butler

  98. 98.

    Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint.

    Samuel Butler

  99. 99.

    Life is not an exact science, it is an art.

    Samuel Butler

  100. 100.

    The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.

    Samuel Butler

  101. 101.

    Faith – you can do very little with it, but you can do nothing without it.

    Samuel Butler

  102. 102.

    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

  103. 103.

    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

  104. 104.

    The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.

    Samuel Butler

  105. 105.

    Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.

    Samuel Butler

  106. 106.

    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

  107. 107.

    All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.

    Samuel Butler

  108. 108.

    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

  109. 109.

    If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.

    Samuel Butler

  110. 110.

    Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.

    Samuel Butler

  111. 111.

    Man is God’s highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.

    Samuel Butler

  112. 112.

    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

  113. 113.

    The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is.

    Samuel Butler

  114. 114.

    Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?

    Samuel Butler

  115. 115.

    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

  116. 116.

    Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.

    Samuel Butler

  117. 117.

    They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, ‘Can he name a kitten?’

    Samuel Butler

  118. 118.

    The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.

    Samuel Butler

  119. 119.

    Women can stand a beating except when it is with their own weapons.

    Samuel Butler

  120. 120.

    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

  121. 121.

    God cannot alter the past, though historians can.

    Samuel Butler

  122. 122.

    The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.

    Samuel Butler

  123. 123.

    Opinions have vested interests just as men have.

    Samuel Butler

  124. 124.

    Is life worth living? This is a question for an embryo not for a man.

    Samuel Butler

  125. 125.

    Be virtuous and you will be vicious.

    Samuel Butler

  126. 126.

    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

  127. 127.

    Our ideas are for the most part like bad sixpences, and we spend our lives trying to pass them on one another.

    Samuel Butler

  128. 128.

    The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.

    Samuel Butler

  129. 129.

    Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

    Samuel Butler

  130. 130.

    Parents are the last people on earth who ought to have children.

    Samuel Butler

  131. 131.

    Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch a cold on overexposure.

    Samuel Butler

  132. 132.

    Nobody shoots at Santa Claus.

    Samuel Butler

  133. 133.

    The history of art is the history of revivals.

    Samuel Butler

  134. 134.

    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

  135. 135.

    A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.

    Samuel Butler

  136. 136.

    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

  137. 137.

    Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have.

    Samuel Butler

  138. 138.

    We shall never get people whose time is money to take much interest in atoms.

    Samuel Butler

  139. 139.

    If I die prematurely I shall be saved from being bored to death at my own success.

    Samuel Butler

  140. 140.

    Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule.

    Samuel Butler

  141. 141.

    Theist and atheist: the fight between them is as to whether God shall be called God or shall have some other name.

    Samuel Butler

  142. 142.

    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

  143. 143.

    When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy, the only decent thing to do is die at once.

    Samuel Butler

  144. 144.

    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

  145. 145.

    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

  146. 146.

    Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.

    Samuel Butler

  147. 147.

    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

  148. 148.

    The only living works are those which have drained much of the author’s own life into them.

    Samuel Butler

  149. 149.

    The dons of Oxford and Cambridge are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.

    Samuel Butler

  150. 150.

    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

  151. 151.

    The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions.

    Samuel Butler

  152. 152.

    Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

    Samuel Butler

  153. 153.

    There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.

    Samuel Butler

  154. 154.

    From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.

    Samuel Butler

  155. 155.

    Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism. Whether it is or is not more efficacious I do not know.

    Samuel Butler

  156. 156.

    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

  157. 157.

    People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.

    Samuel Butler

  158. 158.

    Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.

    Samuel Butler

  159. 159.

    Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.

    Samuel Butler

  160. 160.

    And so there is no God but has been in the loins of past gods.

    Samuel Butler

  161. 161.

    Let every man be true and every god a liar.

    Samuel Butler

  162. 162.

    I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.

    Samuel Butler

  163. 163.

    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

  164. 164.

    Look before you leap for as you sow, ye are like to reap.

    Samuel Butler

  165. 165.

    Young people have a marvelous faculty of either dying or adapting themselves to circumstances.

    Samuel Butler