Samuel Butler (novelist) Quotes

313 Sourced Quotes

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

Samuel Butler
Of all the questions now engaging the attention of those whose destiny has commanded them to take more or less exercise of mind, I know of none more interesting than that which deals with what is called teleology — that is to say, with design or purpose, as evidenced by the different parts of animals and plants.

Samuel Butler
All the inventions that the world contains, Were not by reason first found out, nor brains; But pass for theirs who had the luck to light Upon them by mistake or oversight.

Samuel Butler
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.

Samuel Butler
The foundations which we would dig about and find are within us, like the kingdom of heaven, rather than without.

Samuel Butler
The wish to spread those opinions that we hold conducive to our own welfare is so deeply rooted in the English character that few of us can escape its influence.

Samuel Butler
The moon pull'd off her veil of light, That hides her face by day from sight (Mysterious veil, of brightness made,) That's both her lustre and her shade), And in the lantern of the night, With shining horns hung out her light.

Samuel Butler
We shall never get people whose time is money to take much interest in atoms.

Samuel Butler
Darwinism tries to explain how I am here by showing how my uncles, cousins, and aunts have gone away.

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
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
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