Samuel Butler Quotes
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The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions.
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Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.
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The history of art is the history of revivals.
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Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.
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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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Silence and tact may or may not be the same thing.
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Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch a cold on overexposure.
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If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue.
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Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.
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I really do not see much use in exalting the humble and meek; they do not remain humble and meek long when they are exalted.
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Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule.
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A lawyer's dream of heaven: every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.
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If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do.
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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.
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It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.
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To die is but to leave off dying and do the thing once for all.
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People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.
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Words are not as satisfactory as we should like them to be, but, like our neighbours, we have got to live with them and must make the best and not the worst of them.
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The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.
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Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?
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Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism. Whether it is or is not more efficacious I do not know.
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When you've told someone that you've left them a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.
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Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty, bodily or mental.
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The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.