Samuel Butler Quotes
Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
If I die prematurely at any rate I shall be saved from being bored to death by my own success.
Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom, while discouragement often nips it in the bud.
The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.
People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.
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.
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
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.
Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.
Theist and atheist: The fight between them is as to whether God shall be called God or shall have some other name.
The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions.
Christ and The Church: If he were to apply for a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, adultery and desertion, he would probably get one.
Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.
A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.
A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.
Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch a cold on overexposure.
The dons of Oxford and Cambridge are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.
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.
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.
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.
People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.
Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes guide in doubtful cases, though not often.
From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.
We are not won by arguments that we can analyse but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself.
The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that you know things, and believing in the Christian religion.
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.
All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.