Samuel Butler (novelist) Quotes

313 Sourced Quotes

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

Samuel Butler
It has, I believe, been often remarked that a hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.

Samuel Butler
To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious.

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

Samuel Butler
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.

Samuel Butler
A pair of lovers are like sunset and sunrise: there are such things every day but we very seldom see them.

Samuel Butler
There are some things which it is madness not to try to know but which it is almost as much madness to try to know.

Samuel Butler
[Ideas] are like shadows — substantial enough until we try to grasp them.

Samuel Butler
We can see nothing face to face; our utmost seeing is but a fumbling of blind finger-ends in an overcrowded pocket.

Samuel Butler
Inspiration is never genuine if it is known as inspiration at the time. True inspiration always steals on a person; its importance not being fully recognised for some time.

Samuel Butler
The world is a gambling-table so arranged that all who enter the casino must play and all must lose more or less heavily in the long run, though they win occasionally by the way.

Samuel Butler
The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.

Samuel Butler
One reason why it is as well not to give very much detail is that, no matter how much is given, the eye will always want more; it will know very well that it is not being paid in full. On the other hand, no matter how little one gives, the eye will generally compromise by wanting only a little more. In either case the eye will want more, so one may as well stop sooner or later. Sensible painting, like sensible law, sensible writing, or sensible anything else, consists as much in knowing what to omit as what to insist upon.

Samuel Butler
Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have.

Samuel Butler
Greater luck hath no man than this, that he lay down his wife at the right moment.

Samuel Butler
If God wants us to do a thing, he should make his wishes sufficiently clear. Sensible people will wait till he has done this before paying much attention to him.

Samuel Butler
Men take so much delight in lying, that truth is sometimes forced to disguise herself in the habit of falsehood to get entertainment, as in fables…by the ancients.

Samuel Butler
The Discobolus is put here because he is vulgar —
He has neither vest nor pants with which to cover his limbs.

Samuel Butler
Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another.

Samuel Butler
Our own death is a premium which we must pay for the far greater benefit we have derived from the fact that so many people have not only lived but also died before us.

Samuel Butler
When people talk of atoms obeying fixed laws, they are either ascribing some kind of intelligence and free will to atoms or they are talking nonsense. There is no obedience unless there is at any rate a potentiality of disobeying.

Samuel Butler
There are two great rules of life; the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can, in the end, get what he wants, if he only tries. That is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is, more or less, an exception to the rule.

Samuel Butler
If [men of science] are worthy of the name, [they] are indeed about God's path and about his bed and spy out all his ways.

Samuel Butler
Evaporation is an unseen heavenward waterfall.

Samuel Butler
I reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better.

Samuel Butler
The father of [geology] was he who seeing fossil shells on a mountain conceived the theory of the deluge.

Samuel Butler
Nature. As the word is now commonly used it excludes nature's most interesting productions-the works of man. Nature is usually taken to mean mountains, rivers, clouds and undomesticated animals and plants. I am not indifferent to this half of nature, but it interests me much less than the other half.

Samuel Butler
Learn'd he was in medic'nal lore, For by his side a pouch he wore, Replete with strange hermetic powder That wounds nine miles point-blank would solder.

Samuel Butler
We see but a part, and being thus unable to generalize human conduct, except very roughly, we deny that it is subject to any fixed laws at all, and ascribe much both of a man's character and actions to chance, or luck, or fortune.

Samuel Butler
Dogs with their tongues their wounds do heal, But men with hands, as thou shalt feel.

Samuel Butler