Samuel Butler (novelist) Quotes

313 Sourced Quotes

Taking numbers into account, I should think more mental suffering had been undergone in the streets leading from St George's, Hanover Square, than in the condemned cells of Newgate.

Samuel Butler
No one thinks he will escape death, so there is no disappointment and, as long as we know neither the when nor the how, the mere fact that we shall one day have to go does not much affect us; we do not care, even though we know vaguely that we have not long to live. The serious trouble begins when death becomes definite in time and shape. It is in precise fore-knowledge, rather than in sin, that the sting of death is to be found; and such fore-knowledge is generally withheld; though, strangely enough, many would have it if they could.

Samuel Butler
It is curious that money, which is the most valuable thing in life, exceptis excipiendis, should be the most fatal corrupter of music, literature, painting and all the arts. As soon as any art is pursued with a view to money, then farewell, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, all hope of genuine good work.

Samuel Butler
Painters should remember that the eye, as a general rule, is a good, simple, credulous organ — very ready to take things on trust if it be told them with any confidence of assertion.

Samuel Butler
The true laws of God are the laws of our own well-being.

Samuel Butler
The devil tempted Christ; yes, but it was Christ who tempted the devil to tempt him.

Samuel Butler
Argument is generally waste of time and trouble. It is better to present one's opinion and leave it to stick or no as it may happen. If sound, it will probably in the end stick, and the sticking is the main thing.

Samuel Butler
How thankful we ought to be that Wordsworth was only a poet and not a musician. Fancy a symphony by Wordsworth! Fancy having to sit it out! And fancy what it would have been if he had written fugues!

Samuel Butler
In the highest consciousness there is still unconsciousness, in the lowest unconsciousness there is still consciousness. If there is no consciousness there is no thing, or nothing. To understand perfectly would be to cease to understand at all.

Samuel Butler
X-rays. Their moral is this—that a right way of looking at things will see through almost anything.

Samuel Butler
I should like to like Schumann's music better than I do; I dare say I could make myself like it better if I tried; but I do not like having to try to make myself like things; I like things that make me like them at once and no trying at all.

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

Samuel Butler
An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better.

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

Samuel Butler
The evil that men do lives after them. Yes, and a good deal of the evil that they never did as well.

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

Samuel Butler
Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearances only.

Samuel Butler
They say the test of this [literary power] is whether a man can write an inscription. I say Can he name a kitten? And by this test I am condemned, for I cannot.

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

Samuel Butler
People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.

Samuel Butler
If it tends to thicken the crust of ice on which, as it were, we are skating, it is all right. If it tries to find, or professes to have found, the solid ground at the bottom of the water it is all wrong.

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

Samuel Butler
Yet meet we shall, and part, and meet again
Where dead men meet, on lips of living men.

Samuel Butler
He [the Philosopher] should have made many mistakes and been saved often by the skin of his teeth, for the skin of one's teeth is the most teaching thing about one. He should have been, or at any rate believed himself, a great fool and a great criminal. He should have cut himself adrift from society, and yet not be without society.

Samuel Butler
The greatest poets never write poetry. The Homers and Shakespeares are not the greatest — they are only the greatest that we can know. And so with Handel among musicians. For the highest poetry, whether in music or literature, is ineffable — it must be felt from one person to another, it cannot be articulated.

Samuel Butler
There are two classes, those who want to know and do not care whether others think they know or not, and those who do not much care about knowing but care very greatly about being reputed as knowing.

Samuel Butler
There is nothing less powerful than knowledge unattached, and incapable of application. That is why what little knowledge I have has done myself personally so much harm. I do not know much, but if I knew a good deal less than that little I should be far more powerful.

Samuel Butler
The phrase "unconscious humor" is the one contribution I have made to the current literature of the day.

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

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

Samuel Butler