Samuel Butler (1835-1902)

Quotes

• 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.