Samuel Butler Quotes
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I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.
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The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.
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Christ was only crucified once and for a few hours. Think of the hundreds of thousands whom Christ has been crucifying in a quiet way ever since.
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To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.
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There is no such source of error as the pursuit of truth.
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Is life worth living? This is a question for an embryo not for a man.
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Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.
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All truth is not to be told at all times.
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And so there is no God but has been in the loins of past gods.
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The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
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The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.
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What is faith but a kind of betting or speculation after all? It should be, I bet that my Redeemer liveth.
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He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.
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The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
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Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.
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To give pain is the tyranny; to make happy, the true empire of beauty.
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He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most. God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us.
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The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt.
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When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence.
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The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.