Samuel Butler Quotes

What makes all doctrines plain and clear- About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was prov'd true before Prove false again Two hundred more.

By Samuel Butler

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

By Samuel Butler

We are not won by arguments that we can analyse but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself.

By Samuel Butler

We all like to forgive, and love best not those who offend us least, nor who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.

By Samuel Butler

Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism. Whether it is or is not more efficacious I do not know.

By Samuel Butler

Truth is generally kindness, but where the two diverge and collide, kindness should override truth.

By Samuel Butler

To live is like love, all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.

By Samuel Butler

To live is like to love - all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.

By Samuel Butler

To know God better is only to realize how impossible it is that we should ever know him at all. I know not which is more childish to deny him, or define him.

By Samuel Butler

To give pain is the tyranny; to make happy, the true empire of beauty.

By Samuel Butler

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

By Samuel Butler

They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, 'Can he name a kitten?'

By Samuel Butler

Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. I you look at it to admire it, you are lost.

By Samuel Butler

There is nothing so unthinkable as thought, unless it be the entire absence of thought.

By Samuel Butler

There is no such source of error as the pursuit of absolute truth.

By Samuel Butler

There is no such source of error as the pursuit of truth.

By Samuel Butler

There is no true gracefulness which is not epitomized goodness.

By Samuel Butler

There is no bore like a clever bore.

By Samuel Butler

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

By Samuel Butler

The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it.

By Samuel Butler

Theist and atheist: the fight between them is as to whether God shall be called God or shall have some other name.

By Samuel Butler

Then he saw also that it matters little what profession, whether of religion or irreligion, a man may make, provided only he follows it out with charitable inconsistency, and without insisting on it to the bitter end. It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want of dogma that the danger lies.

By Samuel Butler

The worst thing that can happen to a man is to lose his money, the next worst his health, the next worst his reputation.

By Samuel Butler

The world will only, in the end, follow those who have despised as well as served it.

By Samuel Butler

The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is

By Samuel Butler

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

By Samuel Butler

The three most important parts a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money and his religious beliefs.

By Samuel Butler

The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions.

By Samuel Butler

The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that you know things, and believing in the Christian religion.

By Samuel Butler

The oldest books are only just out to those who have not read them.

By Samuel Butler