Samuel Butler Quotes
-
Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.
-
Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.
-
Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.
-
There is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.
-
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.
-
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing.
-
Silence and tact may or may not be the same thing.
-
Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch a cold on overexposure.
-
The history of art is the history of revivals.
-
Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule.
-
Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?
-
If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue.
-
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.
-
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.
-
If I die prematurely I shall be saved from being bored to death at my own success.
-
Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism. Whether it is or is not more efficacious I do not know.
-
It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.
-
A lawyer's dream of heaven: every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.
-
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.
-
Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty, bodily or mental.
-
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.
-
To die is but to leave off dying and do the thing once for all.
-
People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.
-
The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.