Samuel Butler quotes

“Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.”

— Samuel Butler

“Be virtuous and you will be vicious.”

— Samuel Butler

“If people would dare to speak to one another unreservedly, there would be a good deal less sorrow in the world a hundred years hence.”

— Samuel Butler

“Let every man be true and every god a liar.”

— Samuel Butler

“Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.”

— Samuel Butler

“Theist and atheist: the fight between them is as to whether God shall be called God or shall have some other name.”

— Samuel Butler

“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.”

— Samuel Butler

“A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.”

— Samuel Butler

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

— Samuel Butler

“A skilful leech is better far, than half a hundred men of war.”

— Samuel Butler

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

— Samuel Butler

“All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.”

— Samuel Butler

“Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.”

— Samuel Butler

“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.”

— Samuel Butler

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

— Samuel Butler

“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.”

— Samuel Butler

“Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.”

— Samuel Butler

“My main wish is to get my books into other people's rooms, and to keep other people's books out of mine.”

— Samuel Butler

“Nobody shoots at Santa Claus.”

— Samuel Butler

“One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.”

— Samuel Butler

“Our ideas are for the most part like bad sixpences, and we spend our lives trying to pass them on one another.”

— Samuel Butler

“Silence and tact may or may not be the same thing.”

— Samuel Butler

“The Bible may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

— Samuel Butler

“The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt.”

— Samuel Butler

“The dons of Oxford and Cambridge are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.”

— Samuel Butler

“The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.”

— Samuel Butler

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

— Samuel Butler

“The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.”

— Samuel Butler

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

— Samuel Butler

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

— Samuel Butler