Samuel Butler Quotes - Famous Quotes by Samuel Butler
Born: 1835-12-04
Died: 1902-06-18
Samuel Butler Biography
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
- Samuel Butler
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All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it.
- Samuel Butler
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All philosophies, if you ride them, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.
- Samuel Butler
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All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
- Samuel Butler, Notebooks, 1912
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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, The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)
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Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise man to be able to sell it.
- Samuel Butler
More quotations on: [ Art ] ***
Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
- Samuel Butler
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Arguments are like fire-arms which a man may keep at home but should not carry about with him.
- Samuel Butler
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Brigands demand your money or your life; women require both.
- Samuel Butler
More quotations on: [ Women ] ***
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
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For truth is precious and divine Too rich a pearl for carnal swine.
- Samuel Butler
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Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.
- Samuel Butler
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From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.
- Samuel Butler
More quotations on: [ Mistake ] ***
Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds.
- Samuel Butler
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God cannot alter the past, but historians can.
- Samuel Butler
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God cannot alter the past, though historians can.
- Samuel Butler
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God is Love -- I dare say. But what a mischievous devil Love is
- Samuel Butler
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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.
- Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh
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He that is down can fall no lower.
- Samuel Butler
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I consider being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill.
- Samuel Butler
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I do not mind lying but I hate inaccuracy.
- Samuel Butler
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If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue.
- Samuel Butler
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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.
- Samuel Butler
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It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something.
- Samuel Butler
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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
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It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.
- Samuel Butler
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It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma, or want of dogma, that the danger lies.
- Samuel Butler
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Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes guide in doubtful cases, though not often.
- Samuel Butler
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Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
- Samuel Butler
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Life is not an exact science, it is an art.
- Samuel Butler
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Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
- Samuel Butler
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Logic is like the sword: those who appeal to it shall perish by it.
- Samuel Butler
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Loyalty is still the same,Whether it win or lose the gameTrue as a dial to the sun,Although it be not shined upon.
- Samuel Butler
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Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
- Samuel Butler
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Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.
- Samuel Butler
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Man, unlike the animals, has never learned that the sole purpose of life is to enjoy it.
- Samuel Butler
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Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty.
- Samuel Butler
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Parents are the last people on earth who ought to have children.
- Samuel Butler
More quotations on: [ Children ] ***
People care more about being thought to have taste than about being good, clever, or amiable.
- Samuel Butler
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The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and in exactly the right places.
- Samuel Butler
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The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.
- Samuel Butler
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The course of true anything does not run smooth.
- Samuel Butler
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The difference between God and the historians consists above all in the fact that God cannot alter the past.
- Samuel Butler, 1835-1902
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The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
- Samuel Butler
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The three most important parts a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money and his religious beliefs.
- Samuel Butler
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The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is
- Samuel Butler
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Then he saw also that it matters little what profession, whether of religion or irreligion, a man may make, provided only he follows it out with charitable inconsistency, and without insisting on it to the bitter end. It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want of dogma that the danger lies.
- Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh
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There are two great rules in life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that every one can in the end get what he wants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is more or less of an exception to the general rule.
- Samuel Butler
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To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious.
- Samuel Butler
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To live is like love, all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.
- Samuel Butler
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Truth is generally kindness, but where the two diverge and collide, kindness should override truth.
- Samuel Butler
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What makes all doctrines plain and clear- About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was prov'd true before Prove false again Two hundred more.
- Samuel Butler
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When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.
- Samuel Butler
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You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.
- Samuel Butler
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