Samuel Butler

Quotes

Man, unlike the animals, has never learned that the sole purpose of life is to enjoy it.
Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds.
All philosophies, if you ride them, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.
I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.
He that complies against his will is of the same opinion still.
Conscience is thoroughly well bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it.
Neither have they hearts to stay. Nor wit enough to run away.
Life is one long process of getting tired.
People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises
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.
Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
I consider being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill.
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.
All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it.
Logic is like the sword--those who appeal to it shall perish by it.
The three most important parts a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money and his religious beliefs.
All progress is based on a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
There are two great rules of life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can in the end, get what he wants, if he only tries. That is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is, more or less, an exception to the rule.
People care more about being thought to have taste than about being good, clever, or amiable.
The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is
An honest god's the noblest work of man.
It has beeen said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as truly.
It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something.
If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue.
Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty.
Life is like playing the violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
Logic is like the sword: those who appeal to it shall perish by 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.
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
The difference between God and the historians consists above all in the fact that God cannot alter the past.
It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as truly.
Then he saw also that it matters little what profession, whether of religion or irreligion, a man may make, provided only he follows it out with charitable inconsistency, and without insisting on it to the bitter end. It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want of dogma that the danger lies.
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.
The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.
The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard only one side of the case; God has written all the books.
When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.