Quotes by Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler

English poet

Lived from: 1835 - 1902

Category: Writers (Contemporary) Country: FlagUnited Kingdom

Born: 4 december 1835 Died: 18 june 1902

  • There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.
  • Life is like playing the violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
  • 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.
  • We are not won by arguments that we can analyze, but by tone and temper; by the manner, which is the man himself.
  • I reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better.
  • An empty house is like a stray dog or a body from which life has departed.
  • It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as truly.
  • Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderated use rather than total abstinence.
  • The thief. Once committed beyond a certain point he should not worry himself too much about not being a thief any more. Thieving is God's message to him. Let him try and be a good thief.
  • Words are not as satisfactory as we should like them to be, but, like our neighbors, we have got to live with them and must make the best and not the worst of them.
  • The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is.
  • 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.
  • Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.
  • To live is like to love-all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.
  • To die is but to leave off dying and do the thing once for all.
  • It is immoral to get drunk because the headache comes after the drinking, but if the headache came first and the drunkenness afterwards, it would be moral to get drunk.
  • One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.
  • Birth and death are so closely related that one could not destroy either without destroying the other at the same time. It is extinction that makes creation possible.
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Quotes 1 till 20 of 131.

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  • Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
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  • An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.
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  • 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.
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  • 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.
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  • A genius can never expect to have a good time anywhere, if he is a genuine article, but America is about the last place in which life will be endurable at all for an inspired writer of any kind.
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  • A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
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  • A lawyers dream of heaven; every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.
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  • A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.
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  • A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.
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  • A skilful leech is better far, than half a hundred men of war.
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  • A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.
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  • All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.
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  • All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
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  • 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.
    ― Samuel Butler
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  • An empty house is like a stray dog or a body from which life has departed.
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  • An honest god's the noblest work of man.
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  • Arguments are like fire-arms which a man may keep at home but should not carry about with him.
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  • 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.
    ― Samuel Butler
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  • Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.
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  • Birth and death are so closely related that one could not destroy either without destroying the other at the same time. It is extinction that makes creation possible.
    ― Samuel Butler
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