Top 100 Samuel Butler Quotes

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

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #9432
#2. To give pain is the tyranny; to make happy, the true empire of beauty.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #10473
#3. 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

Samuel Butler Quotes #11984
#4. The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #26818
#5. The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #29549
#6. I never knew a writer yet who took the smallest pains with his style and was at the same time readable.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #82248
#7. There is no permanent absolute unchangeable truth; what we should pursue is the most convenient arrangement of our ideas.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #86788
#8. Theist and atheist: The fight between them is as to whether God shall be called God or shall have some other name.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #125030
#9. Logic is like the sword
those who appeal to it shall perish by it.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #139277
#10. There is no bore like a clever bore.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #143633
#11. Loyalty is still the same, whether it win or lose the game; true as a dial to the sun, although it be not shined upon.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #146938
#12. I am the enfant terrible of literature and science. If I cannot, and I know I cannot, get the literary and scientific big-wigs to give me a shilling, I can, and I know I can, heave bricks into the middle of them.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #162020
#13. 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

Samuel Butler Quotes #174218
#14. There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #203521
#15. To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know he is dead.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #223351
#16. Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #231840
#17. A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #240414
#18. In old times people used to try and square the circle; now they try and devise schemes for satisfying the Irish nation.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #247877
#19. Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #268100
#20. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #318173
#21. 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

Samuel Butler Quotes #329526
#22. All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #330228
#23. For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #350009
#24. All truth is not to be told at all times.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #355472
#25. Memory and forgetfulness are as life and death to one another. To live is to remember and to remember is to live. To die is to forget and to forget is to die.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #358546
#26. The sinews of art and literature, like those of war, are money.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #394719
#27. Brigands will demand your money or your life, but a woman will demand both

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #416998
#28. He was born stupid, and greatly increased his birthright.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #462395
#29. History is a bucket of ashes.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #478973
#30. There is one class of mind that loves to lean on rules and definitions, and another that discards them as far as possible. A faddist will generally ask for a definition of faddism, and one who is not a faddist will be impatient of being asked to give one.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #516578
#31. The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #516822
#32. The room in fact was as depressing from its slatternliness as from its atmosphere of erudition.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #518024
#33. [P]oetry resembles metaphysics: one does not mind one's own, but one does not like anyone else's.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #535116
#34. Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #546798
#35. And so there is no God but has been in the loins of past gods.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #560678
#36. We all love best not those who offend us least, nor those who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #561947
#37. God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #569467
#38. Death is only a larger kind of going abroad.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #601503
#39. 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

Samuel Butler Quotes #613892
#40. I fall asleep in the full and certain hope That my slumber shall not be broken; And that, though I be all-forgetting, Yet shall I not be all-forgotten, But continue that life in the thoughts and deeds of those I have loved.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #642242
#41. His knowledge was not far behind
The knight's, but of another kind,
And he another way came by't ;
Some call it Gifts, and some New Light.
A lib'ral art, that costs no pains
Of study, industry, or brains.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #643989
#42. Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise man to be able to sell it.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #678958
#43. This is why the clergyman is so often called a vicar - he being the person whose vicarious goodness is to stand for that of those entrusted to his charge.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #714123
#44. A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #752281
#45. Opinions have vested interests just as men have.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #756271
#46. 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

Samuel Butler Quotes #759058
#47. There is no such source of error as the pursuit of truth.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #791245
#48. Business should be like religion and science; it should know neither love nor hate.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #805878
#49. 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

Samuel Butler Quotes #819351
#50. The foundations which we would dig about and find are within us, like the kingdom of heaven, rather than without.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #846470
#51. The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #853031
#52. Peter remained on friendly terms with Christ notwithstanding Christ's having healed his mother-in-law.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #854672
#53. From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #891745
#54. In law, nothing is certain but the expense.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #899886
#55. There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #917630
#56. The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #923423
#57. Brigands demand your money or your life; women require both.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #946409
#58. Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #980958
#59. Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #996341
#60. 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

Samuel Butler Quotes #1030058
#61. 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

Samuel Butler Quotes #1058523
#62. Arguments are like fire-arms which a man may keep at home but should not carry about with him.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1064499
#63. Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1067616
#64. Silence and tact may or may not be the same thing.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1074470
#65. Inspiration is never genuine if it is known as inspiration at the time. True inspiration always steals on a person; its importance not being fully recognized for some time.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1112791
#66. 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

Samuel Butler Quotes #1115548
#67. 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

Samuel Butler Quotes #1128781
#68. Friends are like money, easier made than kept.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1172277
#69. In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1181702
#70. 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

Samuel Butler Quotes #1207725
#71. Our own death is a premium which we must pay for the far greater benefit we have derived from the fact that so many people have not only lived but also died before us.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1218660
#72. Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1235430
#73. Spare the rod and spoil the child.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1245351
#74. A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1259416
#75. The only absolute morality is absolute stagnation.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1279552
#76. Property, marriage, the law; as the bed to the river, so rule and convention to the instinct; and woe to him who tampers with the banks while the flood is flowing.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1339343
#77. Flying. Whatever any other organism has been able to do man should surely be able to do also, though he may go a different way about it.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1412130
#78. It stands to reason that he who would cure a moral ailment must be practically acquainted with it in all its bearings.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1413102
#79. Life is one long process of getting tired.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1448011
#80. Happiness and misery consist in a progression towards better or worse; it does not matter how high up or low down you are, it depends not on this, but on the direction in which you are tending.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1456966
#81. My boy," returned my father, "you must not judge by the work, but by the work in connection with the surroundings. Could Giotto or Filippo Lippi, think you, have got a picture into the Exhibition? Would

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1465246
#82. 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

Samuel Butler Quotes #1465933
#83. 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

Samuel Butler Quotes #1471912
#84. Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1492573
#85. A credulous mind ... finds most delight in believing
strange things, and the stranger they are the easier they pass
with him; but never regards those that are plain and
feasible, for every man can believe such.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1542521
#86. 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

Samuel Butler Quotes #1546540
#87. The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1611736
#88. 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

Samuel Butler Quotes #1614476
#89. 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

Samuel Butler Quotes #1615008
#90. The greatest 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

Samuel Butler Quotes #1670337
#91. Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1681389
#92. The dons of Oxford and Cambridge are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1686963
#93. 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

Samuel Butler Quotes #1697257
#94. 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

Samuel Butler Quotes #1714010
#95. To do great work one must be very idle as well as very industrious.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1773237
#96. The history of art is the history of revivals.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1791919
#97. Exploring is delightful to look forward to and back upon, but it is not comfortable at the time, unless it be of such an easy nature as not to deserve the name.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1809486
#98. They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, 'Can he name a kitten?

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1810516
#99. Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1830792
#100. The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler Quotes #1854828

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