Best 226 quotes of Samuel Butler on MyQuotes

Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.

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

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.

Adversity, if a man is set down to it by degrees, is more supportable with equanimity by most people than any great prosperity arrived at in a single lifetime.

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.

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

A lawyer's dream of heaven: every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.

All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it - and they do enjoy it as much as man and other circumstances will allow.

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

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

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

A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.

A man should have any number of little aims about which he should be conscious and for which he should have names, but he should have neither name for, nor consciousness concerning the main aim of his life.

An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.

And, after all, the Athanasian Creed is light and comprehensible reading in comparison with much that now passes for science.

And so there is no God but has been in the loins of past gods.

An obstinate man does not hold opinions, but they hold him; for when he is once possessed with an error, it is, like a devil, only cast out with great difficulty.

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

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.

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.

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

A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.

Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.

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

Books want to be born: I never make them. They come to me and insist on being written, and on being such and such.

Brigands demand your money or your life; women require both.

Business should be like religion and science; it should know neither love nor hate.

Cat-Ideas and Mouse-Ideas. We can never get rid of mouse-ideas completely, they keep turning up again and again, and nibble, nibble-no matter how often we drive them off. The best way to keep them down is to have a few good strong cat-ideas which will embrace them and ensure their not reappearing till they do so in another shape.

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.

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.

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.

Death is only a larger kind of going abroad.

Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom, while discouragement often nips it in the bud.

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.

Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.

Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint.

Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.

Flying. Whatever any other organism has been able to do man should surely be able to do also, though he may go a different way about it.

For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine.

God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.

From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.

Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds

God and the Devil are an effort after specialisation and division of labour.

God cannot alter the past, though historians can.

God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.

Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.

He dons are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.

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.

He is greatest who is most often in men's good thoughts.

He that complies against his will, Is of his own opinion still.