Samuel Butler (novelist) quotes - page 13

All thinking is of disturbance, dynamical, a state of unrest tending towards equilibrium. It is all a mode of classifying and of criticising with a view of knowing whether it gives us, or is likely to give us, pleasure or no. (Samuel Butler (novelist))
In art, never try to find out anything, or try to learn anything until the not knowing it has come to be a nuisance to you for some time. Then you will remember it, but not otherwise. Let knowledge importune you before you will hear it. Our schools and universities go on the precisely opposite system. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Surely the glory of finally getting rid of and burying a long and troublesome matter should be as great as that of making an important discovery. The trouble is that the coverer is like Samson who perished in the wreck of what he had destroyed; if he gets rid of a thing effectually he gets rid of himself too. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Time is the only true purgatory. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Moral influence means persuading another that one can make that other more uncomfortable than that other can make oneself. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
The devil tempted Christ; yes, but it was Christ who tempted the devil to tempt him. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Many, if not most, good ideas die young - mainly from neglect on the part of the parents, but sometimes from over-fondness. Once well started, an opinion had better be left to shift for itself. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
We know so well what we are doing ourselves and why we do it, do we not? I fancy that there is some truth in the view which is being put forward nowadays, that 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. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Sin is like a mountain with two aspects according to whether it is viewed before or after it has been reached: yet both aspects are real. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
My notes always grow longer if I shorten them. I mean the process of compression makes them more pregnant and they breed new notes. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
If people like being deceived - and this can hardly be doubted - there can rarely have been a time during which they can have had more of the wish than now. The literary, scientific and religious worlds vie with one another in trying to gratify the public. (Samuel Butler (novelist))
It is hard upon the duckling to have been hatched by a hen, but is it not also hard upon the hen to have hatched the duckling? View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
To try to live in posterity is to be like an actor who leaps over the footlights and talks to the orchestra. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
It is a distinguishing peculiarity of the Erewhonians that when they profess themselves to be quite certain about any matter, and avow it as a base on which they are to build a system of practice, they seldom quite believe in it. If they smell a rat about the precincts of a cherished institution, they will always stop their noses to it if they can. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
The extremes of vice and virtue are alike detestable; absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is, let alone the dullnesses of it and the pomposities of it. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Every new idea has something of the pain and peril of childbirth about it; ideas are just as mortal and just as immortal as organised beings are. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
The Will-be and the Has-been touch us more nearly than the Is. So we are more tender towards children and old people than to those who are in the prime of life. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Truth consists not in never lying but in knowing when to lie and when not to do so. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Painters should remember that the eye, as a general rule, is a good, simple, credulous organ - very ready to take things on trust if it be told them with any confidence of assertion. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
By a merciful dispensation of Providence university training is almost as costly as it is unprofitable. The majority will thus be always unable to afford it, and will base their opinions on mother wit and current opinion rather than on demonstration. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
A little boy and a little girl were looking at a picture of Adam and Eve. "Which is Adam and which is Eve?" said one. "I do not know," said the other, "but I could tell if they had their clothes on." (Samuel Butler (novelist))
The evil that men do lives after them. Yes, and a good deal of the evil that they never did as well. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
If a man would get hold of the public era, he must pay, marry, or fight. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
To love God is to have good health, good looks, good sense, experience, a kindly nature and a fair balance of cash in hand. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
If a man has not studied painting, or at any rate black and white drawing, his eyes are wild; learning to draw tames them. The first step towards taming the eyes is to teach them not to see too much. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)