Samuel Butler Quotes

"I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy."
-Samuel Butler in Hate quotes.

"If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue."
-Samuel Butler

"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."
-Samuel Butler

"Life is like playing the violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on."
-Samuel Butler in Learning quotes.

"When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once."
-Samuel Butler

"People care more about being thought to have taste than about being good, clever, or amiable."
-Samuel Butler in Thought quotes.

"A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg."
-Samuel Butler

"Then he saw also that it matters little what profession, whether of religion or irreligion, a man may make, provided only he follows it out with charitable inconsistency, and without insisting on it to the bitter end. It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want of dogma that the danger lies."
-Samuel Butler in Danger quotes.

"The difference between God and the historians consists above all in the fact that God cannot alter the past."
-Samuel Butler in God quotes.

"The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore."
-Samuel Butler

"Neither have they hearts to stay. Nor wit enough to run away. "
-Samuel Butler in Wit quotes.

"He that complies against his will is of the same opinion still."
-Samuel Butler

"Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them."
-Samuel Butler

"All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it."
-Samuel Butler in Animals quotes.

"Man, unlike the animals, has never learned that the sole purpose of life is to enjoy it."
-Samuel Butler

"It has beeen said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as truly."
-Samuel Butler in Love quotes.

"I consider being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill."
-Samuel Butler

"It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all."
-Samuel Butler

"Logic is like the sword-those who appeal to it shall perish by it."
-Samuel Butler

"Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds."
-Samuel Butler in Genius quotes.

"All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income."
-Samuel Butler in Progress quotes.

"An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books."
-Samuel Butler in God quotes.

"Conscience is thoroughly well bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it."
-Samuel Butler in Talking quotes.

"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."
-Samuel Butler in God quotes.

"Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well."
-Samuel Butler in Honesty quotes.

"Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty."
-Samuel Butler in Goodness quotes.

"It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something."
-Samuel Butler