Samuel Butler (novelist) quotes - page 4

We do not know what death is. If we know so little about life which we have experienced, how shall be know about death which we have not - and in the nature of things never can? (Samuel Butler (novelist))
Inspiration is never genuine if it is known as inspiration at the time. True inspiration always steals on a person; its importance not being fully recognised for some time. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Adversity, if a man is set down to it by degrees, is more supportable with equanimity by most people than any great prosperity arrived at in a single lifetime. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Don't learn to do, but learn in doing. Let your falls not be on a prepared ground, but let them be bona fide falls in the rough and tumble of the world. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy - but he who has shown the better temper. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
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. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Letters are like wine; if they are sound they ripen with keeping. A man should lay down letters as he does a cellar of wine. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
In old times people used to try and square the circle; now they try and devise schemes for satisfying the Irish nation. (Samuel Butler (novelist))
Those who have never had a father can at any rate never know the sweets of losing one. To most men the death of his father is a new lease of life. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Brigands demand your money or your life; women require both. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
The Athanasian Creed is to me light and intelligible reading in comparison with much that now passes for science. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
There is such a thing as doing good that evil may come. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Man is God's highest present development. He is the latest thing in God. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Let every man be true and every god a liar. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
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. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
A drunkard would not give money to sober people. He said they would only eat it, and buy clothes and send their children to school with it. (Samuel Butler (novelist))
Is life worth living? This is a question for an embryo not for a man. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
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. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those worth committing. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)