Samuel Butler (novelist) Quotes

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 ...

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.

Friendship is like money easier made than kept.

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.

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.

In law, nothing is certain but the expense.

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

Mr. Tennyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, but he wisel...

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

Having, then, once introduced an element of inconsistency into his system, he was far too consistent...

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

Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to ...

A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalida...

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

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

I can generally bear the separation but I don't like the leave-taking.

I remember one incident which bears upon this part of the treatise. The gentleman who gave it to me ...

Mention but the word "divinity," and our sense of the divine is clouded.

Exploring is delightful to look forward to and back upon, but it is not comfortable at the time, unl...

In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved.

A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.

We want words to do more than they can. We try to do with them what comes to very much like trying t...

Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime

If people who are in a difficulty will only do the first little reasonable thing which they can clea...

Embryos think with each stage of their development that they have now reached the only condition tha...

There are orphanages," he exclaimed to himself, "for children who have lost their parents--oh! why, ...