Famous Samuel Butler Quotations

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"It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all."
by Samuel Butler
"It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as truly."
by Samuel Butler
"I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy."
by Samuel Butler
"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."
by Samuel Butler
"The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way."
by Samuel Butler
"Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have."
by Samuel Butler
"A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy."
by Samuel Butler
"The dons of Oxford and Cambridge are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything."
by Samuel Butler
"The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions."
by Samuel Butler
"The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously."
by Samuel Butler
"The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them."
by Samuel Butler
"The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them."
by Samuel Butler
"The sinews of art and literature, like those of war, are money."
by Samuel Butler
"The want of money is the root of all evil."
by Samuel Butler
"The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is."
by Samuel Butler
"There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon."
by Samuel Butler
"There is such a thing as doing good that evil may come."
by Samuel Butler
"There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death."
by Samuel Butler
"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."
by Samuel Butler
"To die is but to leave off dying and do the thing once for all."
by Samuel Butler
"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."
by Samuel Butler
"What is faith but a kind of betting or speculation after all? It should be, I bet that my Redeemer liveth."
by Samuel Butler
"When the righteous man truth away from his righteousness that he hath committed and doeth that which is neither quite lawful nor quite right, he will generally be found to have gained in amiability what he has lost in holiness."
by Samuel Butler
"Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness."
by Samuel Butler
"You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it."
by Samuel Butler
"All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income."
by Samuel Butler
"Young people have a marvelous faculty of either dying or adapting themselves to circumstances."
by Samuel Butler
"Arguments are like fire-arms which a man may keep at home but should not carry about with him."
by Samuel Butler
"Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well."
by Samuel Butler
"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."
by Samuel Butler
"It is tact that is golden, not silence."
by Samuel Butler
"Man is God's highest present development. He is the latest thing in God."
by Samuel Butler
"Neither irony or sarcasm is argument."
by Samuel Butler
"Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies."
by Samuel Butler
"One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once."
by Samuel Butler
"People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable."
by Samuel Butler
"Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?"
by Samuel Butler
"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."
by Samuel Butler
"Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so."
by Samuel Butler
"In law, nothing is certain but the expense."
by Samuel Butler
"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."
by Samuel Butler
"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."
by Samuel Butler
"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."
by Samuel Butler
"Logic is like the sword: those who appeal to it shall perish by it."
by Samuel Butler
"From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right."
by Samuel Butler
"Death is only a larger kind of going abroad."
by Samuel Butler
"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."
by Samuel Butler
"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."
by Samuel Butler
"All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it."
by Samuel Butler
"Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself."
by Samuel Butler
"The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds."
by Samuel Butler
"He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still."
by Samuel Butler
"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."
by Samuel Butler
"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."
by Samuel Butler
"Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day."
by Samuel Butler
"A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes he sees as the best, and scorns a guide."
by Samuel Butler
"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."
by Samuel Butler
"A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg."
by Samuel Butler
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing."
by Samuel Butler
"A lawyer's dream of heaven: every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers."
by Samuel Butler
"A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand."
by Samuel Butler
"A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends."
by Samuel Butler
"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."
by Samuel Butler
"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."
by Samuel Butler
"A skilful leech is better far, than half a hundred men of war."
by Samuel Butler
"Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them."
by Samuel Butler
"All animals, except man, know that the principle business of life is to enjoy it."
by Samuel Butler
"All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it."
by Samuel Butler
"All progress is based on a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income."
by Samuel Butler
"All philosophies, if you ride them, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others."
by Samuel Butler
"All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others."
by Samuel Butler
"All of the animals except for man know that the principle business of life is to enjoy it."
by Samuel Butler
"All truth is not to be told at all times."
by Samuel Butler
"An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard only one side of the case; God has written all the books."
by Samuel Butler
"An apology for the devil it must be remembered that we have heard only one side of the case God has written all the books."
by Samuel Butler
"And so there is no God but has been in the loins of past gods."
by Samuel Butler
"Be virtuous and you will be vicious."
by Samuel Butler
"Because they did not see merit where they should have seen it, people, to express their regret, will go and leave a lot of money to the very people who will be the first to throw stones at the next person who has anything to say and finds a difficulty in getting a hearing."
by Samuel Butler
"Because they did not see merit where they should have seen it, people, to express their regret, will go and leave a lot of money to the very people who will be the first to throw stones at the next person who has anything to say and finds a difficult"
by Samuel Butler
"Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance."
by Samuel Butler
"Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them."
by Samuel Butler
"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."
by Samuel Butler
"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."
by Samuel Butler
"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."
by Samuel Butler
"Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself."
by Samuel Butler
"Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint."
by Samuel Butler
"Faith - you can do very little with it, but you can do nothing without it."
by Samuel Butler
"Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself."
by Samuel Butler
"For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine."
by Samuel Butler
"For truth is precious and divine Too rich a pearl for carnal swine."
by Samuel Butler
"Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds."
by Samuel Butler
"God cannot alter the past, but historians can."
by Samuel Butler
"God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch."
by Samuel Butler
"God and the Devil are an effort after specialization and the division of labor."
by Samuel Butler
"God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal."
by Samuel Butler
"God is Love -- I dare say. But what a mischievous devil Love is"
by Samuel Butler
"Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence."
by Samuel Butler
"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."
by Samuel Butler
"He was born stupid, and greatly increased his birthright."
by Samuel Butler
"He that is down can fall no lower."
by Samuel Butler


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