Samuel Butler Quotes

Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.

To live is like to love - all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.

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

Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.

Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.

Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.

We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to them.

Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.

The oldest books are only just out to those who have not read them.

Silence is not always tact, and it is tact that is golden, not silence.

The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions.

A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.

I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.

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.

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.

You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.

A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.

The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.

The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.

It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.

Opinions have vested interests just as men have.

To give pain is the tyranny; to make happy, the true empire of beauty.

A lawyer's dream of heaven: every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.

The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.

Life is not an exact science, it is an art.

Justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.

The public do not know enough to be experts, but know enough to decide between them.

All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.

It has been said that although God cannot alter the past, historians can —it is perhaps because they can be useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence.

God cannot alter the past, though historians can.

If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue.

Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in playing.

For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine.

The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.

He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.

People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.

Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint.

When you've told someone that you've left them a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.

If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.

Loyalty is still the same, whether it win or lose the game; as true as a dial to the sun, although it be not shined upon.