Samuel Butler (poet) Quotes

90 Sourced Quotes

As the ancients
Say wisely, have a care o' th' main chance,
And look before you ere you leap;
For as you sow, ye are like to reap.

Samuel Butler
To swallow gudgeons ere they 're catch'd,
And count their chickens ere they're hatch'd.

Samuel Butler
All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it.

Samuel Butler
The hollow-hearted, disaffected,
And close malignant are detected ;
Who lay their lives and fortunes down,
For pledges to secure our own.

Samuel Butler
He cou'd foretel whats'ever was
By consequence to come to pass;
As death of great men, alterations,
Diseases, battles, inundations.
All this, without th' eclipse o' th' sun,
Or dreadful comet, he hath done,
By inward light; away as good,
And easy to be understood;
But with more lucky hit than those
That use to make the stars depose,
Like Knights o' th' post, and falsely charge
Upon themselves what others forge:
As if they were consenting to
All mischiefs in the world men do:
Or, like the Devil, did tempt and sway 'em
To rogueries, and then betray 'em.

Samuel Butler
The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty,
For want of fighting was grown rusty,
And ate into itself, for lack
Of somebody to hew and hack.

Samuel Butler
And prove their doctrine orthodox,
By apostolic blows and knocks.

Samuel Butler
Love is a boy, by poets styled,
Then spare the rod, and spoil the child.

Samuel Butler
They'll say our bus'ness, to reform
The Church and State, is but a worm;
For to subscribe, unsight, unseen,
To an unknown Church-discipline,
What is it else, but before-hand
T'engage, and after understand?
For when we swore to carry on
The present Reformation,
According to the purest mode
Of Churches best reformed abroad,
What did we else, but make a vow
To do we know not what, nor how?'

Samuel Butler
But still his tongue ran on, the less
Of weight it bore, with greater ease.

Samuel Butler
There 's but the twinkling of a star
Between a man of peace and war.

Samuel Butler
Friend Ralph, thou hast
Outrun the constable at last.

Samuel Butler
'Cause grace and virtue are within
Prohibited degrees of kin;
And therefore no true saint allows
They shall be suffer'd to espouse.

Samuel Butler
No Indian prince has to his palace
More followers than a thief to the gallows.

Samuel Butler
Cleric before, and Lay behind;
A lawless linsey-woolsey brother,
Half of one order, half another.

Samuel Butler
A skilful leech is better far
Than half an hundred men of war,
So he appear'd; and by his skill,
No less than dint of sword, cou'd kill.

Samuel Butler
For truth is precious and divine,—
Too rich a pearl for carnal swine.

Samuel Butler
As men of inward light are wont
To turn their optics in upon 't.

Samuel Butler
For money has a power above
The stars and fate, to manage love.

Samuel Butler
With crosses, relics, crucifixes,
Beads, pictures, rosaries, and pixes,—
The tools of working our salvation
By mere mechanic operation.

Samuel Butler
Learning, that cobweb of the brain,
Profane, erroneous, and vain.

Samuel Butler
Each window like a pill'ry appears,
With heads thrust thro' nail'd by the ears.

Samuel Butler
For those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that's slain.

Samuel Butler
And force them, though it was in spite
Of Nature and their stars, to write.

Samuel Butler
Some force whole regions, in despite
O' geography, to change their site;
Make former times shake hands with latter,
And that which was before come after.
But those that write in rhyme still make
The one verse for the other's sake;
For one for sense, and one for rhyme,
I think 's sufficient at one time.

Samuel Butler
Compound for sins, they are inclined to,
By damning those they have no mind to.

Samuel Butler
She that with poetry is won,
Is but a desk to write upon.

Samuel Butler
For Rhime the Rudder is of Verses,
With which like Ships they steer their courses.

Samuel Butler
This Light inspires, and plays upon
The nose of Saint like Bag-pipe drone,
And speaks through hollow empty Soul,
As through a Trunk, or whisp'ring hole,
Such language as no mortal Ear
But spiritual Eve-droppers can hear.

Samuel Butler
The sun had long since in the lap
Of Thetis taken out his nap,
And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn
From black to red began to turn.

Samuel Butler