Samuel Butler Quotes
-
Let every man be true and every god a liar.
-
God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.
-
When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy, the only decent thing to do is die at once.
-
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.
-
Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.
-
Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
-
It is a wise tune that knows its own father, and I like my music to be the legitimate offspring of respectable parents.
-
All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.
-
No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.
-
Christ: I dislike him very much. Still, I can stand him. What I cannot stand is the wretched band of people whose profession is to hoodwink us about him.
-
Brigands demand your money or your life; women require both.
-
God cannot alter the past, though historians can.
-
A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.
-
In old times people used to try and square the circle; now they try and devise schemes for satisfying the Irish nation.
-
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.
-
My main wish is to get my books into other people's rooms, and to keep other people's books out of mine.
-
For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine.
-
In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa.
-
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.
-
We shall never get people whose time is money to take much interest in atoms.