Samuel Butler (novelist) quotes - page 6

Opinions have vested interests just as men have. (Samuel Butler (novelist))
The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
I never knew a writer yet who took the smallest pains with his style and was at the same time readable. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
There are two classes, those who want to know and do not care whether others think they know or not, and those who do not much care about knowing but care very greatly about being reputed as knowing. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity? View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Women can stand a beating except when it is with their own weapons. (Samuel Butler (novelist))
The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Death is only a larger kind of going abroad. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Morality is the custom of one's country and the current feeling of one's peers. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Words are not as satisfactory as we should like them to be, but, like our neighbours, we have got to live with them and must make the best and not the worst of them. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Oaths are but words, and words but wind. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Self-preservation is the first law of nature. (Samuel Butler (novelist))
There is no bore like a clever bore. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
There is no such source of error as the pursuit of absolute truth. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Stowed away in a Montreal lumber room The Discobolus standeth and turneth his face to the wall Dusty, cobweb-covered, maimed and set at naught, Beauty crieth in an attic and no man regardeth O God O Montreal. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
A physician's physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric's divinity has to his power of influencing conduct. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)