Samuel Butler (novelist) quotes

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them. (Samuel Butler (novelist))
Though God cannot alter the past, historians can.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
To live is like to love - all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Business should be like religion and science; it should know neither love nor hate.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
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 (novelist)
It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as truly. (Samuel Butler (novelist))
The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
The Bible may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Life is one long process of getting tired.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself. (Samuel Butler (novelist))
The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Money is the last enemy that shall never be subdued. While there is flesh there is money or the want of money, but money is always on the brain so long as there is a brain in reasonable order.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions.
Samuel Butler (novelist)