Samuel Butler Quotes
-
Opinions have vested interests just as men have.
-
Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.
-
Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?
-
To die is but to leave off dying and do the thing once for all.
-
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.
-
It is our less conscious thoughts and our less conscious actions which mainly mould our lives and the lives of those who spring from us.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Be virtuous and you will be vicious.
-
People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.
-
Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.
-
God and the Devil are an effort after specialization and the division of labor.
-
Our ideas are for the most part like bad sixpences, and we spend our lives trying to pass them on one another.
-
People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.
-
The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is.
-
Priests are not men of the world; it is not intended that they should be; and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so.
-
Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions.
-
It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy - but he who has shown the better temper.
-
Mr. Tennyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, but he wisely refrains from saying whether they are good or bad things.
-
One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.