Samuel Butler (poet) Quotes

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

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

What runs through a person like water through a sieve.

A physician's physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric's divinity h...

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

A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does...

I keep my books at the British Museum and at Mudies.

Theist and atheist: The fight between them is as to whether God shall be called God or shall have so...

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

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

Friendship is like money easier made than kept.

The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that yo...

All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every living organism to live b...

Peter remained on friendly terms with Christ notwithstanding Christ's having healed his mother-in-la...

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

The foundations which we would dig about and find are within us like the Kingdom of Heaven rather ...

Our self-conceit sustains and always must sustain us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I reckon being ill is one of the greatest pleasures of life provided one is not too ill and is not ...

Let us eat and drink neither forgetting death unduly nor remembering it. The Lord hath mercy on whom...

Books should be tried by a judge and jury as though they were crimes.

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

An apology for the Devil - it must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God h...

Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, i...

The world is naturally averse to all truth it sees or hears but swallows nonsense and a lie with gre...

I have never written on any subject unless I believed that the authorities on it were hopelessly wro...

The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has co...

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

We are not won by arguments that we can analyze but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the m...

There is one thing certain namely that we can have nothing certain therefore it is not certain th...

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

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

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

Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.

It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want of dogma tha...

The test of a good critic is whether he knows when and how to believe on insufficient evidence.

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.

It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something.

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

Words are clothes that thoughts wear

The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him, and not only will h...

People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio b...

The history of art is the history of revivals.

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

Faith is a kind of betting or speculation.

Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.

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

The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will h...

Don't learn to do, but learn in doing.

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

To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he ...

Prayers are to men as dolls are to children.

To do great work one must be very idle as well as very industrious.

One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten and to leave off fightin...

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

Self-preservation is the first law of nature.

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

A lawyer's dream of heaven - every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection and each tried to...

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

If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised t...

The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he no...

A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that is blind ...

Loyalty is still the same Whether it win or lose the game True as a dial to the sun Although it b...

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

We grow weary of those things (and perhaps soonest) which we most desire.

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

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

It has been said that although God cannot alter the past, historians can --it is perhaps because the...

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

No matter how ill we may be nor how low we may have fallen we should not change identity with any ...

[P]oetry resembles metaphysics: one does not mind one's own, but one does not like anyone else's.

It has been said that though God cannot alter the past historians can - it is perhaps because they ...

Life is one long process of getting tired.

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

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

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

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

To put one's trust in God is only a longer way of saying that one will chance it.

Whatso'er we perpetrate We do but row we are steered by fate.

The advantage of doing one's praising to oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in t...

A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of ...

We all love best not those who offend us least, nor those who have done most for us, but those who m...

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

People are lucky and unlucky ... according to the ratio between what they get and what they have bee...

All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it.

We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.

Truth might be heroic, but it was not within the range of practical domestic politics.

The tendency of modern science is to reduce proof to absurdity by continually reducing absurdity to ...

I do not mind lying but I hate inaccuracy.

Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it.

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

We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to them.

Man unlike the animal has never learned that the sole purpose of life is to enjoy it.

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

Neither have they hearts to stay Nor wit enough to run away.

Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.